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http://www.archive.org/details/fiftyyearsofamerOOmoorrich 


FIFTY  YEARS  OF 
AMERICAN  EDUCATION 


FIFTY  YEARS  OF 
AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

j:  sketch  of  the  trogress 
of  education  lo^the  united  stjtes 

FROM  1867  TO  igiy 

BY 

ERNEST  CARROLL  MOORE 


GINN  AND  COiMPANY 

BOSTON    •    NEW  YORK    •     CHICAGO    •    LONDON 
ATLANTA    •    DALLAS    •    COLUMBUS    •    SAN  FRANCISCO 


COPYRIGHT,  1917,  BY   ERNEST  CARROLL  MOORE 

ENTERED  AT  STATIONERS*  HALL 

ALL    RIGHTS   RESERVED 


gfte  fltften«eum   gre<< 

GINN  AND  COMPANY,'  PRO- 
PRIETORS •  BOSTON  'JU.S.A. 


'  BOSTON  rAJ. 


1867— 19^7 

\N  THE  year  18 6 j  Edwin  Ginn  took  desk 
room  in  a  modest  Boston  office  and  so  began 
the  business  which  has  for  many  years  been 
conducted  under  the  firm  name  of  Ginn  and  Company. 
When  an  individual  or  an  organization  reaches  the 
half-century  mark  it  seems  fitting  to  signalize  in  some ' 
appropriate  way  that  achievement.  Casting  about  for 
a  suitable  anniversary  memento  of  our  own  fifty  years, 
we  were  struck  by  the  remarkable  growth  and  develop- 
ment of  the  school  system  of  the  United  States  during 
this  period. 

It  finally  seemed  to  us  that  we  could  do  no  better  than 
invite  Dr.  Ernest  C.  Moore  to  sum  up  the  educational 
progress  of  the  United  States  since  186 j.  We  are  sure 
that  Dr.  Moore  s  admirable  sketch  of  the  history  of 
education  in  this  country  for  the  period  beginning  in 
18 6 J  and  ending  in  igiy  will  be  a  welcome  and  useful 
contribution  to  our  educational  literature,  and  we  bring 
it  before  the  public  with  gratitude  that  our  own  busi- 
ness development  has  been  contemporaneous  with  this 
marvelous  change  in  our  American  schools. 

GINN  AND  COMPANY 

370317 

1^ 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  I  3 

WE  LIVE  IN  A  PERIOD  OF  CHANGE 

CHAPTER  II  II 

EDUCATION  AT  THE  END  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

CHAPTER  III  43 

SOME  CHANGES  SINCE  THE  CIVIL  WAR 
BIBLIOGRAPHY  95 


FIFTY  YEARS  OF 
AMERICAN  EDUCATION 


» .    *    ' 

>  ',»  » 


CHAPTER  I 

OTHING  seems  more  certain  than  PFe  live 
that  this  is  a  dynamic  universe,  in  ^^  ^ 
which  all  things  change,  for  activity  ^,  -^ 
is  their  law.  Yet  the  changes  which  everywhere 
go  on  take  place  so  imperceptibly  that  it  is  only 
when  their  effects  are  massed  that  we  begin  to 
note  their  existence.  Something  very  like  a  tor- 
rent of  change  has  been  pushing  life  forward  in 
the  United  States  since  the  Civil  War,  and  we 
who  are  caught  up  in  its  onrushing  have  been 
carried  along  too  swiftly  to  be  aware  of  the  dis- 
tance we  have  traveled  or  the  speed  at  which 
we  are  moving.  Francis  Galton  declared  that 
man's  work  in  clearing  the  forests  of  North 
America  "  would  be  visible  to  an  observer  as 
far  off  as  the  moon,"  yet  we  who  dwell  in  the 
land  that  that  clearing  made  habitable  tend  to 
think  of  its  physical  features  as  always  having 
been  the  same  as  they  now  are.  That  same 
statifying  tendency  benumbs  our  perception 

3 


Fifty:     ^  tliroughout.  I  heard  President  Eliot  say  in  a 

Tears  of  recent  address  that  the  last  fifty  years  has  been 

-,         .     "the  most  prodigious  period  of  change  through 

which  the  world  has  ever  passed/'  Most  of  us  do 

not  think  of  it  in  that  way. 

Let  us  note  a  few  of  the  changes  which 
came  on  the  heels  of  the  Civil  War.  The  first 
transatlantic  cable  was  laid  in  1866.  The  first 
transcontinental  railway  was  operated  in  1869. 
Bell's  first  telephone  bears  the  date  1875,  and 
telephone  exchanges  were  instituted  in  1879. 
The  first  cable  car  line  was  started  in  San  Fran- 
cisco in  1 873.  Electric  lighting  dates  from  1 876 
and  electric  traction  from  1880.  The  Mer- 
genthaler  linotype  was  completed  in  1884.  In 
1885  Daimler  invented  the  internal  combus- 
tion motor,  and  in  1894  the  first  trial  run  of 
automobiles  was  organized  by  a  French  news- 
paper. In  1896  Marconi  produced  an  opera- 
tive electric-wave  telegraph.  Langley  tested  his 
steam-driven  flying  machine  in  1893,  ^^^ 
in  1903  the  Wright  brothers  made  their  first 
flight  in  a  motor-driven  aeroplane.  In  1877 
Holland  constructed  his  first  submarine.  The 


first  dreadnought  made  its  trial  run  in  1906.  We  live 
New  guns,  of  long  range,  accuracy,  and  rapidity  ^^  ^ 
of  fire,  and  high  explosives  contributed  an  in-  ^J'^^  ^ 
strument  of  slaughter  which  the  combined 
power  of  mankind  is  hardly  able  to  keep  from 
destroying  the  human  race.  If  tools  are  but  the 
elongation  of  the  human  hand,  man's  arm  has 
been  mightily  lengthened  during  the  last  half 
century. 

But  progress  in  mechanical  inventions  is  but 
one  phase  of  the  development  of  science.  Per- 
haps the  most  significant  changes  of  all  have 
taken  place  in  medicine.  **  Forty  years  ago," 
says  Sir  William  Osier,  "the  w-orld  did  not 
know  the  cause  of  any  of  the. great  infections. 
.  .  .  Of  all  the  great  camp  diseases  —  plague, 
cholera,  malaria,  yellow  fever,  typhoid  fever, 
typhus,  and  dysentery  —  we  know  the  mode  of 
transmission,  and  of  all  but  yellow  fever,  the 
germs.  Man  has  now  control  of  the  most  malign 
of  Nature's  forces  in  a  way  never  dreamt  of  by 
our  fathers.  .  .  .  Half  a  century  has  done  more 
than  a  hundred  centuries  to  solve  the  problem 
of  the  first  importance  in  his  progress." 

S 


Fifty  Such  are  a  few  of  the  revolutionary  changes 

Tears  of  ^hich  science  has  ushered  in  in  the  brief  period 

^  J       .of  the  half  century  which  will,  it  seems,  be 

Education  ^       ^  '' 

known  in  history  as  the  scientific  age.  Darwin's 
epochal  discovery  had  been  given  to  the  world 
in  1859.  Huxley,  Spencer,  Pasteur,  Berthelot, 
Joule,  Clerk  Maxwell,  Tait,  and  Kelvin  were 
at  work  and  Faraday  was  still  alive  when  the 
period  we  are  studying  began.  The  creation  of 
the  sciences,  always  a  slow  process,  had  reached 
a  period  of  intensification. 

Science  is  an  active  force  which  infiltrates  all 
human  relations.  The  discovery  which  Darwin 
made  has  wrought  no  less  significant  changes 
in  religious,  moral,  political,  social,  and  philo- 
sophical conceptions  than  have  steam  and  elec- 
tricity in  the  way  of  mechanical  assistance.  In 
view  of  its  enlarged  comprehension  and  the 
changed  attitudes  which  that  enlarged  compre- 
hension entails,  it  is  nothing  short  of  exact  truth 
to  say  that  in  the  last  half  century  the  race  has 
achieved  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth. 

If  we  ask  how  it  has  been  with  our  country 
during  this  period  we  shall  find  that  immense 
6 


social  transformations  have  taken  place.  First  We  live 

came  the  ever-to-be  regretted  period  of  recon-  ^^  ^ 

struction  and  at  the  same  time  the  rapid  de-   JP^  ^ 

^  Change 

velopment  of  the  farming  regions  of  the  great 

West.  Then  in  rapid  succession  came  civil-serv- 
ice reform,  great  labor  agitations,  the  Sherman 
Antitrust  Act,  the  panic  of  1 893,  and  the  wide- 
spread agitation  for  monetary  legislation  which 
it  caused.  Then  came  the  war  with  Spain,  in 
which  the  United  States  took  possession  of  Cuba  ^ 
and  restored  that  island  to  its  rightful  owners, 
drove  Spain  from  the  Philippine  Islands  and 
determined  to  retain  them  until  such  time  as 
they  might  safely  be  intrusted  to  their  own  in- 
habitants, thus  forsaking  its  previous  policy  of 
isolation  to  become  an  active  member  of  the 
family  of  the  great  powers  of  the  world.  The 
Pacific  was  joined  to  the  Atlantic,  the  franchise 
was  extended  to  women  in  several  states,  immi- 
grants poured  into  the  country  by  the  million. 
The  desert  was  reclaimed;  farm  acreage  was  ex- 
tended by  an  area  that  exceeded  the  territory  of 
the  German  Empire.  Industrialism  grew,  cities 
doubled  and  trebled  their  populations,  great 

7 


Fifty         combinations  of  skilled  and  unskilled  workers 

Tears  of  ^ere  formed.  Political  radicalism  gained  con- 

tiAmerican  ^     ^        a  •       •  r  <..•  c      c 

-, ,  trol  and  semisocialistic  proerams  oi  reform 

tducation  .  -i      o 

were  enacted  into  laws. 

Have  changes  at  all  comparable  with  these 
taken  place  in  education  ?  Has  the  progress  of 
invention,  the  advance  of  science,  the  onrush- 
ing  development  of  social,  economic,  and  po- 
litical life  been  accompanied  by  a  corresponding 
development  in  the  schools  of  the  nation?  Prog- 
ress  in  education  follows  progress  in  other  a^cti  v- 
itiesof  life.  It  is  apt  to  follow  somewhat  afar  off, 
for  the  school  is  a  conserving  rather  than  a  re- 
newing force.  The  battle  of  ideas  does  not  rage 
in  it  as  it  rages  in  the  world.  Its  first  duty  is  to 
teach,  and  before  it  can  do  so  confidently  it  must 
be  assured  of  the  validity  and  the  great  worth  of 
what  it  teaches.  Adults  are  far  more  ready  to  try 
experiments  upon  themselves  than  upon  their 
children.  The  young,  they  feel,  must  not  be  en- 
dangered by  innovations.  Only  that  which  has 
been  tested  and  proved,  although  usually  by  time 
rather  than  by  merit,  has  a  claim  upon  their 
attention.  The  school,  therefore,  sits  somewhat 
8 


Change 


apart  from  the  current  of  change.  Yet  there  is  M^e  live 

a  relation  between  educational  advance  and  in-  ^^  ^ 

,        .  1       J     .   .  J  •        J  Teriodof 

dustrial  and  civic  progress,  and  in  a  democracy  -^ 

it  must,  in  a  measure,  overcome  its  tendency  to 

aloofness  and  make  itself  the  responsive  servant 

of  the  public  need.  This  it  has  done  and  is  doing, 

and,  as  a  consequence,  the  changes  which  have 

taken  place  in  education  in  the  last  fifty  years 

are  momentous. 


CHAPTER  II 

O  PROVIDE  a  background  for  our  Education 
picture  let  us  take  note  of  the  signifi-  ^^  the  End 

cant  educational  movements  which  ;(.   .j„^ 

Civil  IVar 

had  been  set  afoot  before  the  period  which  we 
are  to  study  began,  in  order  that  we  may  know  - 
its  historical  heredity.  In  Massachusetts  localism 
obtained  its  greatest  control  over  education  in 
the  decentralized  district  school  about  the  year 
1827.  There  were  only  two  functions  which  the 
districts  could  not  perform.  One  was  the  levying 
and  apportioning  of  taxes  and  the  other  was  the 
certificating  of  teachers,  both  of  these  functions 
being  retained  by  the  towns.  The  school  district 
is  the  minutest  subdivision  into  which  govern- 
m  ental  authority  has  ever  been  broken,  and  under 
its  control  of  instruction  public  education  de- 
clined to  its  nadir.  The  process  by  which  the 
school  districts  thus  unhappily  opposed  the  gen- 
eral welfare  and  obtained  a  destructive  measure  ^ 
of  local  control  was  at  least  a  century  long.  It 

II 


Fifty  brought  about  the  undoing  of  the  town  gram- 
1  ears  of  jj^^j.  schools  and  provided  only  very  inferior 
£,  ,  .  neighborhood  schools  in  place  of  them.  In  self- 
defense  the  v^ealthier  folks  here  and  there  es- 
tablished private  academies  to  obtain  a  better 
education  for  their  children,  and  in  time  the 
state  aided  them  with  grants  of  public  money. 
These  schools  were  free  in  the  sense  that  they 
were  open  to  all  who  could  meet  their  condi- 
tions, but  their  tuition  fees  had  to  be  paid. 

But  about  the  year  1 800  an  immense  change 
had  begun  to  come  over  the  land.  The  invention 
of  the  steam  engine  had  started  a  mighty 
transformation  in  the  life  of  the  people.  Do- 
mestic industry  was  supplanted  by  the  factory 
system.  The  factories  which  sprang  up  needed 
workers,  and  people  flocked  from  the  country 
into  the  towns.  At  first  the  towns  were  little 
better  than  hastily  constructed  camps  without 
adequate  housing,  adequate  sanitation,  adequate 
police  and  health  regulations.  Ignorance,  dis- 
ease, drunkenness,  poverty,  and  crime  flourished 
in  them.  Then  came  the  hard  times  of  1 8 1 9— 
1 8  2 1 ,  which  made  conditions  so  desperate  that 
12 


great  humanitarian  movements  took  form  to  Education 
alleviate  them.  Among  these  were  the  tem- ^^^^^^^^ 
perance  movement ;  the  labor  movement ;  the  ^.  . ,  ^^ 
philanthropic  movement  to  care  for  the  poor, 
to  provide  hospitals  for  the  insane,  to  combat 
the  increase  of  crime  and  furnish  training  to  the 
deaf,  dumb,  and  blind ;  and,  most  important  of 
all,  a  mighty  movement  in  behalf  of  popular 
education,  preaching  a  veritable  crusade  against 
the  evils  of  the  time  by  the  creation  of  tax- 
supported  public  schools.  This  is  the  period  of 
our  educational  revival  which  after-years  may 
look  back  upon  as  no  less  significant  in  human 
historythan  the  Renaissanceor  the  Reformation. 
The  names  of  the  humanitarians  are  on  the 
honor  roll  of  the  nation.  Among  them  are  the 
educational  revivalists.  James  G.  Carter  is  their 
leader  and  more  than  any  other  is  responsible 
for  starting  the  great  school  reform.  He  fought 
valiantly  against  the  two  causes  which  seemed 
to  him  to  be  chiefly  responsible  for  the  failure 
of  free  schools :  bad  teachers  and  poor  books. 
The  state,  he  said,  must  go  into  the  business  of 
training  teachers,  and  must  provide  that  training 

13 


Fifty         without  cost  to  them.  He  outHned  an  insti- 

Years  of  tution  which  would  do  this,  and  declared  that 

American       ii-  •  u  ^      ^      r        i-r 

-,  ,  only  by  its  creation  could  standards  oi  qualinca- 

tducation        -^     ^  .... 

tion  be  set,  and  stability,  dignity,  and  power  be 

given  to  the  teaching  profession.  He  did  not 
succeed  immediately  in  persuading  the  state 
of  Massachusetts  to  authorize  the  founding  of 
normal  schools,  but  he  was  the  prime  mover  in 
that  enterprise  and  one  of  the  founders  of  that 
oldest  of  teachers'  associations,  the  American 
Institute  of  Instruction,  which  took  form  in 
1829.  That  organization  met  in  Boston.  Its 
membership  was  composed  largely  of  teachers 
and  educational  leaders  from  New  England;  but 
representatives  from  the  Middle,  the  Southern, 
and  the  Western  states  were  present  at  its  meet- 
ings and  gave  the  society  a  national  character 
from  its  very  beginning.  Its  purpose  was  *'to  do 
something  toward  elevating  the  standard  and 
increasing  theefficiency  of  popular  instruction,'* 
says  the  preface  to  the  first  volume  of  its  Pro- 
ceedings. "It  will  furnish  the  means,  by  the 
cooperation  of  its  members,  of  obtaining  an 
exact  knowledge  of  the  present  condition  of  the 


schools  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  It  will  tend  Education 
to  render  universal,  so  that  it  shall  pervade  every  ^nheEnd^ 
districtandvillage,astrongconvictionofthepar-  :;.  .,^ 
amount  national  importance  of  preserving  and 
extending  the  means  of  popular  instruction,  thus 
securing  the  aid  of  multitudes  of  fellow  laborers 
in  every  portion  of  the  country.  It  will  tend  to 
raise  the  standard  of  the  qualification  of  instruc- 
tors, so  that  the  business  of  teaching  shall  not  be 
the  last  resort  of  dullness  and  indolence,  but  shall 
be  considered,  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  republican 
Greece,  an  occupation  worthy  of  the  highest 
talents  and  ambition.  It  will  hardly  fail  to  show 
that  education  is  a  science,  to  be  advanced,  like 
every  other  science,  by  experiment;  whose  prin- 
ciples are  to  be  fixed  and  capacities  determined 
by  experiment;  which  is  to  be  entered  upon  by 
men  of  a  philosophical  mind  and  pursued  with  a 
philosophical  spirit.  It  will  be  likely  to  bring  for- 
ward the  modes  and  objects  of  instruction  in  for- 
eign nations  and  ancient  times  and  their  appli- 
cability to  the  state  of  things  among  ourselves."  ^ 

^  From  the  preface  to  the  first  volume  of  the  Proceedings  of  The 
American  Institute  of  Instruction. 

^5 


Fifty         The  nation  now  had  a  parliament  for  "  the  dif- 
Tears  of  fusion  of  useful  knowledge  in  regard  to  educa- 

cs,       .     tion."  The  cry  had  been  sounded  that  "this 
tducatton  -' 

country  ought  to  be  the  best  educated  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,"  and  its  educational  leaders 
were  now  organized  to  make  it  so. 

Other  revivalists  of  education  were  Samuel 
R.  Hall,  who  founded  at  Andover  in  the  year 
1829  a  seminary  for  teachers,  a  private  normal 
school  and  the  first  real  school  for  teachers  in 
the  United  States;  Horace  Mann,  the  protago- 
nist of  public  education,  who  having  worked 
with  the  others  of  that  splendid  company  to  cre- 
ate the  first  State  Board  of  Education  in  Massa- 
chusetts, in  1837  became  its  secretary;  Charles 
Brooks,  who  without  compensation  traveled 
over  New  England,  preaching  the  gospel  of  free 
public  education;  George  B.  Emerson,  the  prime 
mover  in  forming  the  Boston  Mechanics'  Insti- 
tution in  1 8  27;  and  Henry  Barnard,  "the  Educa- 
tor." They  preached  the  doctrine  that  universal 
education  is  necessary  to  increase  production,  to 
diminish  crime,  to  prevent  poverty,  to  preserve 
free  institutions,  and  to  prevent  the  creation  of 
16 


a  caste  system,  and  that  it  is  one  of  the  natural  Education 
rights  of  man.  The  people  heard  them  gladly.  ^^^heEnd 
The  pioneers  in  the  West  and  the  laboring  men  ^.  .,^^ 
in  the  cities  lent  valiant  support  to  the  cause. 
Of  Horace  Mann  and  his  work  something 
more  must  be  said  even  in  so  brief  an  account  as 
this  is  intended  to  be.  In  1836  the  directors  of 
the  American  Institute  of  Instruction  presented 
a  memorial  to  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts, 
"showing  the  inefficiency  of  the  means  now 
employed  for  the  education  of  the  teachers  of 
the  common  schools  and  praying  the  legisla- 
ture to  do  something  for  their  better  instruc- 
tion." They  asked  it  to  appoint  a  superintendent 
of  the  common  schools.  Governor  Everett, 
however,  in  his  message  to  the  legislature  rec- 
ommended the  creation  of  a  state  board  of 
education ;  and,  very  fortunately  for  the  future 
of  the  public  schools  of  the  nation,  since  no 
lone  and  unsupported  superintendent  could  have  ^^ 

done  what  was  required  unaided,  the  governor's 
recommendation  prevailed.  Accordingly,  in 
1837,  a  State  Board  of  Education,  made  up 
of  the  governor  and  lieutenant-governor  as 

17 


Fifty         ex-officio  members  and  of  eight  others  ap- 

Tears  of  pointed  by  the  governor,  came  into  being.  The 

^American  r»        j  i       •      i 

r.  J  rJoard  was  authorized  to  appoint  a  secretary 

Education  ^^  ^ 

whose  duty  was  to  be  "to  collect  information 
of  the  actual  conditions  and  efficiency  of  the 
common  schools  and  other  means  of  popular 
education  and  to  diffiise  as  widely  as  possible 
throughout  every  part  of  the  commonwealth 
information  of  the  most  approved  and  success- 
ful modes  of  instruction." 

Mr.  Horace  Mann,  an  attorney-at-law  of 
Dedham,  who  was  the  presiding  officer  of  the 
senate  of  Massachusetts,  championed  the  bill 
from  the  first.  His  keen  interest  in  the  cause  of 
education,  his  activity  in  many  lines  of  public  re- 
form, and  his  readiness  to  work  without  sparing 
himself  led  the  governor  to  appoint  him  as  one 
of  the  members  of  the  new  Board.  "  For  my- 
self," he  writes,  "  I  never  had  a  sleeping  or  wak- 
ing dream  that  I  should  ever  think  of  myself  or 
be  thought  of  by  any  other  in  relation  to"  the 
post  of  secretary.  Twenty  days  before  the  ap- 
pointment of  the  new  Board  was  announced 
such  a  suggestion  was  made  to  him  by  one  who 
i8 


was  in  the  confidence  of  the  governor  and  was,  Education 
like  himself,  to  be  a  member  of  the  Board.  Was  ^t  the  End 

Mr.  Mann  fitted  for  such  a  post  ?  He  had  not  been  5>.   .  7^rr^ 

^  .  Civil  War 

professionally  trained  for  educational  leader- 
ship, but  nobody  else  had  been  then.  He  had 
not  served  the  cause  of  public  education  as 
had  Mr.  James  G.  Carter,  who  for  years  had 
urged  school  reform  in  Massachusetts.  But  he 
had  served  the  people  most  acceptably  in  a  posi- 
tion of  leadership.  He  was  a  trained  and  success- 
ful lawyer,  a  man  of  great  talent,  and  no  one  alive 
was  more  interested  than  he  in  the  welfare  of 
humanity  or  more  eager  to  serve  its  helplessness 
and  need.  Indeed,  he  was  a  kind  of  knight-errant 
of  the  holy  spirit,  laborious  and  self-denying  to  a 
fault,  one  of  the  finest  and  most  useful  of  all  the 
great  men  whom  our  country  has  yet  produced. 
"  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  Judged  in 
the  light  of  what  he  did  for  public-school  edu- 
cation in  America,  the  members  of  the  Board  of 
Education  seem  to  have  been  inspired  in  their 
choice  of  their  secretary. 

The  words  of  the  fathers  are  both  interest- 
ing and  profitable.  How  did  this  first  de  facto 

19 


Fifty         superintendent  of  schools  in  our  country  regard 

Tears  of  \{^^  work  ?  Of  the  Board  of  Education  he  writes : 

zAmerican 

Education  It  is  the  first  great  movement  toward  an  organized 
system  of  common  education  which  shall  be  at  once 
thorough  and  universal.  Every  civilized  state  is  im- 
perfectly organized  without  a  minister  or  secretary  of 
instruction,  as  it  would  be  without  ministers  or  secre- 
taries of  state,  finance,  war,  or  the  navy.  Every  child 
should  be  educated;  if  not  educated  by  its  own  father, 
the  state  should  appoint  a  father  to  it.  I  would  much 
sooner  surrender  a  portion  of  the  territory  of  the  com- 
monwealth to  an  ambitious  neighbor  than  I  would 
surrender  the  minds  of  its  children  to  the  dominion 
of  ignorance.  .  .  .  When  will  society,  like  a  mother, 
take  care  of  all  her  children  ? 

When  he  is  pressed  for  an  answer  whether 
he  will  accept  the  secretaryship  of  the  Board, 
he  writes  in  his  diary : 

I  cannot  think  of  that  station  as  regards  myself 
without  feeling  both  hopes  and  fears,  desires  and 
apprehensions  multiplying  in  my  mind — so  glorious 
a  sphere  should  it  be  crowned  with  success,  so  heavy 
a  disappointment  and  humiliation  should  it  fail 
through  any  avoidable  misfortune.  What  a  thought, 
to  have  the  future  minds  of  such  multitudes  de- 
pendent in  any  perceptible  degree  upon  one's  own 

20 


exertions  !  It  is  such  a  thought  as  must  mightily  Education 

energize  or  totally  overpower  any  mind  that  can  at  the  End 

adequately  comprehend  it.  of  the 

Civil  War 
And  when  on  the  29th  of  June,  1837,  this  first 

American  director  of  the  education  of  the  young 
is  elected  to  his  high  responsibility,  we  find  him 
writing  down  a  prayer  for  "an  annihilation  of 
selfishness,  a  mind  of  wisdom,  a  heart  of  benevo- 
lence'' and  resolving  within  himself,  as  both  he 
and  all  his  sons  of  the  office  have  such  good 
need  to,  that  there  is  but  one  spirit  in  which  the 
impediments  raised  by  men  of  one  motive,  who 
are  incased  in  jealousy  and  prejudice  and  intent 
only  upon  gain  for  themselves,  can  be  met,  and 
that  is  the  spirit  of  self-abandonment  —  the 
spirit  of  the  martyr. 

I  must  not  irritate,  I  must  not  humble,  I  must  not 
degrade  anyone  in  his  own  eyes.  I  must  not  present 
myself  as  a  solid  body  to  oppose,  an  iron  barrier  to  ^ 

any.  I  must  be  a  fluid  sort  of  man,  adapting  myself 
to  tastes,  opinions,  habits,  manners,  so  far  as  this  can 
be  done  without  hypocrisy  or  insincerity  or  a  com- 
promise of  principle.  In  all  this  there  must  be  a  higher 
principle  than  to  win  personal  esteem,  or  favor,  or 
worldly  applause.  A  new  fountain  may  now  be  opened. 

21 


Fifty  Let  me  strive  to  direct  its  current  in  such  a  manner 

Years  of  that  if  when  I  have  departed  from  life  I  may  still  be 
American  permitted  to  witness  its  course,  I  may  behold  it 
Education  broadening  and  deepening  in  an  everlasting  progres- 
sion of  virtue  and  happiness.  ...  I  have  faith  in 
the  improvability  of  men — in   their  accelerating 
improvability. 

Such  was  his  consecration  and  such  was  his 
creed. 

By  1850  the  New  England  doctrine  of  tax- 
supported  free  schools  had  been  accepted  in  all 
the  Northern  States,  and  free  schools  had  made 
their  appearance  in  some  of  the  states  of  the 
South.  The  normal  school  was  from  the  first  an 
essential  feature,  perhaps  the  chief  feature  of 
this  great  democratic  movement  for  popular 
education.  In  1839— 1840  Massachusetts  cre- 
ated three  of  them,  at  Lexington,  Barre,  and 
Bridgewater.  Other  states  soon  established  them. 
It  followed  that  if  the  schools  were  to  be  of 
the  people,  for  the  people,  and  by  the  people, 
the  endowed  academies  must  be  superseded  by 
public  high  schools.  The  first  high  school  had 
been  established  by  the  municipality  of  Boston 
in  1 8  21.  Neighboring  towns  soon  created 
22 


similar  ones.  Philadelphia  in  1838  established  Education 
the  Central  High  School;  Baltimore  opened  ^^ ^^'^ ^^^ 
a  city  college  and  Providence  created  a  high  i,.  ..j^ 
school  in  1843;  ^^^  Hartford  made  over  her 
grammar  school  into  a  high  school  in  1 847. 

It  was  fortunate  for  the  nation  that  the  claims 
of  education  were  so  incomparably  championed 
at  the  time  when  the  life  of  the  states  was  begin- 
ning to  take  organized  form.  But  for  what  the 
educational  revivalists  did  and  stimulated  others 
to  do  in  other  parts  of  the  land,  the  nation  might 
have  been  very  different  from  what  it  has  been 
and  will  be,  and  education  might  have  had  but 
a  small  and  insignificant  part  in  it.  As  it  was, 
the  foundations  which  they  put  down  had  only 
been  laid,  when  the  question  of  slavery  and  the 
all-absorbing  Civil  War  claimed  the  attention 
of  men,  and  what  they  had  so  finely  begun  had 
to  be  taken  up  as  unfinished  business  and  carried 
to  completion  when  the  war  was  over  and  life 
had  once  more  resumed  its  proper  course. 

The  year  1867  witnessed  that  great  resump- 
tion of  the  nation's  proper  business.  On  March  2 
of  that  year  an  act  establishing  a  department 

23 


Fifty         of  education  was  approved,  the  first  section  of 
Tears  of   which  reads  as  follows: 

c.  J       .  Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  the  House  ofRepre- 

tfducatton  .  .  J      r 

sentatives  of  the  United  States  of  America,  in  Congress 

assembled,  that  there  shall  be  established  at  the  city 
of  Washington,  a  Department  of  Education  for  the 
purpose  of  collecting  such  statistics  and  facts  as  shall 
show  the  condition  and  progress  of  education  in  the 
several  States  and  Territories,  and  of  diffusing  such 
information  respecting  the  organization  and  manage- 
ment of  school  systems  and  methods  of  teaching  as 
shall  aid  the  people  of  the  United  States  in  the  estab- 
lishment and  maintenance  of  efficient  school  systems 
and  otherwise  promote  the  cause  of  education  through- 
out the  country. 

That  tireless  straggler  for  public  schools, 
Henry  Barnard,  was  appointed  the  first  Com- 
/  missioner  of  Education,  and  at  the  end  of  oneyear 
in  office,  on  March  1 5,  1 868,  he  submitted  his 
first  report.  That  report  contains  priceless  mate- 
rial concerning  the  history  of  education  in  our 
country,  not  the  least  of  which  is  the  speech 
made  by  James  A.  Garfield  of  Ohio  in  support 
of  the  bill  to  establish  a  national  bureau  of  edu- 
cation which  a  select  committee,  of  which  he 
was  chairman,  had  reported  to  the  House  on 
24 


the  memorial  of  the  National  Association  of  Education 
School  Superintendents.  at  the  End 

There  were  7  6  states  in  the  United  States  at  ;(.   . ,  „^ 
^  ^  ^  Ltvilfrar 

that  time.  Even  the  Congressional  Library  con- 
tained no  educational  reports  whatever  from  1 9 
of  them.  The  other  1 7  had  raised  by  taxation 
$34,000,000  annually  for  the  support  and 
maintenance  of  public  schools  during  the  five 
years  of  war.  The  Census  of  1 860  showed  that 
there  were  in  the  United  States  1 15,224  com- 
mon schools,  150,241  teachers, and  5,477,037 
scholars.  According  to  the  same  census  there 
were  1,218,311  free  white  inhabitants  of  the 
United  States  over  twenty-one  years  of  age  who 
could  not  read  or  write,  and  871,418  of  these 
were  American-born  citizens.  Their  number 
had  been  growing  alarmingly.  Mr.  Mann  added 
30  per  cent  to  these  figures  for  "undoubted  un- 
derestimates," and  some  persons  went  so  far  as  to 
declare  that  one  fourth  of  the  population  were 
illiterate.  A  third  of  a  million  immigrants  were 
arriving  every  year,  a  large  proportion  of 
whom  were  uneducated,  and  4,000,000  slaves 
had  just  been  admitted  to  citizenship  by  the 

25 


Fifty         events  of  the  war.  "Such,Sir,"  said  Mr.  Garfield, 
Tears  of  «js  ^^  immense  force  which  we  must  now 

H^fyipyi/'/Tft 

C.J       .     confront  by  the  eenius  of  our  institutions  and 
tducation  ^  •'  ^  ^ 

the  light  of  our  civilization.  How  shall  it  be 
done?  An  American  citizen  can  give  but  one  - 
answer.  We  must  pour  upon  them  the  light  of 
our  public  schools.  We  must  make  them  intel- 
ligent, industrious,  patriotic  citizens,or  they  will 
drag  us  and  our  children  down  to  their  level.'' 
The  work  to  be  done  in  the  new  era  which 
began  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  was  gigan- 
tic, but  the  American  spirit  had  been  re-created 
and  balked  at  nothing.  What  were  the  agencies 
already  in  existence  which  it  could  employ  in 
the  resolute  fight  for  internal  development  to 
which  it  now  gave  itself?  Public  education  was 
now  definitely  regarded  as  a  national  interest. 
It  is  not  only  the. birthright  of  the  child  but  the 
state's  indispensable  means  of  self-preservation 
and  improvement.  Twenty-six  states  had  by 
the  beginning  of  the  year  1867  created  state 
school  systems  and  state  superintendents  of  pub- 
lic instruction  to  direct  them.  By  that  date  there 
were  4  state  normal  schools  in  Massachusetts, 
26 


2  in  New  York,  i  in  Michigan,  i  in  New  Jer-  Education 

sey,  I  in  Illinois,  4  in  Pennsylvania,  5  in  Wis-  ^^  ^^^  ^^^ 

consin,  i  in  Minnesota,  i  in  California,  i  in  ;{.   .j^r 

CtvilWar 

Indiana,  i  in  South  Carolina,  3  in  Vermont,  i 
in  Kansas,  2  in  Maine,  i  in  Maryland,  and  i 
in  Delaware.  City  normal  schools  had  been 
opened  at  New  Haven,  St.  Louis,  San  Francisco, 
and  in  3  towns  in  Indiana  and  3  in  Iowa.  Upon 
the  refusal  of  the  legislature  of  Ohio  to  establish 
such  a  school  the  State  Teachers'  Association 
in  1855  started  one.  The  report  of  the  Com-  ^* 
missioner  of  Education  for  the  year  1870,  a 
precious  volume  because  it  contains  the  first 
available  body  of  statistics  concerning  the  schools 
of  the  United  States,  reports  that  in  this  year 
no  less  than  369  colleges  were  in  existence.  In 
1862,  in  the  midst  of  the  Civil  War,  Congress 
had  passed  a  bill  granting  to  each  state  30,000 
acres  of  land  for  each  senator  and  representative 
in  Congress.  The  income  from  the  sale  of  this 
land  was,  according  to  the  directions  of  the  bill, 
to  constitute  a  perpetual  fund,  and  the  interest 
on  that  fund  was  to  be  used  for  "the  endow- 
ment, support,  and  maintenance  of  at  least  one 

27 


Fifty  college**  in  which  **the  leading  object  should 
Tears  of  be,  without  excluding  other  scientific  and  clas- 
P  ,  sical  studies,  and  including  military  tactics,  to 

teach  such  branches  of  learning  as  are  related 
to  agriculture  and  the  mechanic  arts,  in  such 
manner  as  the  Legislatures  of  the  States  may 
respectively  prescribe,  in  order  to  promote  the 
liberal  and  practical  education  of  the  industrial 
classes,  in  their  several  pursuits  and  professions 
in  life.**  Nineteen  states  had  established  colleges 
before  the  end  of  1 86 1,  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania having  been  created  in  1755,  the  Uni- 
versity of  Vermont  in  1791,  the  University  of 
Virginia  in  1825,  the  University  of  Indiana  in 
1828,  the  University  of  Michigan  in  1837,  and 
the  University  of  Wisconsin  in  1848. 

If  we  turn  now  to  the  report  of  the  Com- 
missioner of  Education  for  the  year  1870,  in 
order  to  learn  where  the  educational  battle  was 
pitched,  we  shall  find  some  interesting  facts 
concerning  the  condition  of  education  in  the 
several  states  at  that  time. 

The  first  free  public  school  was  established 
in  California  in  1849.  ^^  1869  there  were 
28 


73,754  children  enrolled  in  1268  schools.  In  Education 
the  1 9 16  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Ed-  ^t  the  End 

Or   t h P 

ucation  the  whole  number  of  pupils  in  school  -L.   .,,^^ 

^    ^  LtviLPVar 

in  that  state  is  reported  as  513,002. 

Though  the  laws  of  the  state  of  Connecticut 
laid  an  obligation  upon  every  parent  and  guard- 
ian of  children  **  not  to  suffer  so  much  barbarism 
in  any  of  their  families  as  to  have  a  single  child 
or  apprentice  unable  to  read  "  and  also  "  to 
bring  them  up  to  some  lawful  calling  or  em- 
ployment," the  rate  bill  existed  in  that  state 
until  the  year  1868,  when  a  law  was  passed  re- 
quiring each  town^'^to  "  raise  by  taxation  such 
sum  of  money  as  it  may  find  necessary  to  make 
its  schools  free."  The  first  year's  trial  of  this 
measure  demonstrated  that  some  6000  children 
had  been  kept  from  school  by  the  rate  bill. 
New  Haven  reports  that  it  has  maintained  a 
system  of  graded  schools  for  sixteen  years. 

Delaware  replies  to  the  request  of  the  com- 
missioner for  information  about  its  schools  that 
it  "is  unable  to  supply  reports  asked  for."  There 
appears  to  have  been  a  complete  absence  of 
supervision  there. 

29 


Fifty  The  number  of  children  attending  school  in 

Years  of  ^hg  gt^te  of  Illinois  in    1868   was  706,780. 
P  ,  The  latest  figure  is  1,246,827.  Only  about  5 

per  cent  of  its  schools  were  graded  in  1867. 
"  This  small  proportion  of  graded  schools," 
writes  the  superintendent,  "furnishes  an  im- 
pressive practical  argument  in  favor  of  the 
abolition  of  the  independent  local  school  dis- 
trict. But  while  the  adoption  of  the  township 
system  would  remove  all  organic  obstacles  to 
the  general  prevalence  of  graded  schools,  it 
would  not  remove  the  misapprehension,  preju- 
dice, and  indifference  which  so  largely  obtain 
in  respect  to  the  improved  kinds  of  schools  and 
methods  of  instruction.*'  In  this  wise  observa- 
tion made  fifty  years  ago,  the  need  for  the  con- 
solidation of  schools  is  clearly  stated  and  the 
obstacle  which  to  this  day  has  prevented  that 
much  agitated  reform  is  pointed  out. 

The  Superintendent  of  Schools  of  Indiana  re- 
ports that  although  the  constitution  of  the  state 
makes  it  incumbent  upon  the  legislature  to  pro- 
vide "a  general  and  uniform  system  of  com- 
mon schools  wherein  tuition  shall  be  without 

30 


charge  and  equally  open  to  all,  we  cannot  avoid  Education 
the  grave  consideration  that  there  is  a  large  ^t  the  End 

colored    population   in   the  state   who    have  ^    .f^^^ 

^    ^     .  .  Civil  War 

hitherto  submitted  patiently  to  the  ordeal  of 

adverse  public  sentiment  and  the  force  of  our 
statutes  in  being  denied  participation  in  our 
public-school  funds,  while  at  the  same  time  no 
bar  can  be  discovered  to  their  natural  and  con- 
stitutional right  to  these.  .  .  .  Colored  citizens 
while  hitherto  deprived  of  their  natural  and 
constitutional  rights  have  been  subject  to  the 
special  school  tax  for  township  purposes  in 
common  with  white  citizens,  and  have  thus 
paid  their  proportion  of  expense  for  building 
schoolhouses  for  white  children.  After  being 
denied  all  privilege  to  the  school  funds  and 
thus  taxed,  they  have  been  under  the  necessity 
of  levying  upon  themselves  an  additional  tax  to 
build  their  own  schoolhouses  and  for  the  entire 
cost  of  their  tuition."  This  passage  shows  that 
since  that  day  the  people  of  the  United  States 
have,  in  at  least  one  respect,  grown  considerably 
in  grace  and  injustice. 

Iowa  reports  that  every  civil  township  is  a 

.31 


Fifty         school  district  and  is  divided  into  subdistricts 
Tears  of  ^Jth   subdirectors,    each    subdirector    having 

r,  J       .     charee  of  the  school  affairs  in  his  district. 
Education  ^ 

It  is  a  notable  fact  that  persons  are  often  chosen 
for  these  positions  without  any  reference  to  financial 
abihty  or  even  common  prudence.  Much  attention 
is  attached  to  the  training  in  music  which  is  given 
in  many  of  the  graded  schools.  The  old  practice  of 
rote  singing  is  discarded. 

Kansas  reports  that  though  "the  constitution 
of  the  state  provides  that  *the  500,000  acres  of 
land  granted  to  the  new  states  under  an  act  of 
Congress  distributing  the  proceeds  of  public 
lands  among  the  several  states  of  the  Union, 
approved  September  4,  a.  d.  i  84  i ,  shall  be  in- 
violably appropriated  to  the  support  of  the 
common  schools,'  notwithstanding  this  provi- 
sion, the  legislature  of  1866  appropriated  the 
whole  5  00,000  acres  tofour  rail  way  companies." 

The  report  of  the  Superintendent  of  Schools 
of  Kentucky  gives  an  account  of  the  struggle 
of  that  state  to  obtain  a  reform  in  its  school 
laws  which  failed  "through  the  ignorance  and 
prejudice  of  the  legislature,  notwithstanding  a 


previous  decision  of  the  people,  by  a  majority  Education 
of  20,000  votes,  in  favor  of  such  reform.  The  ^t  the  End 

common  sentiment  expressed  was,  *  Give  us  /.  .  f ,,^ 

^  ,  CtvilWar 

better  laws  and  more  money  or  abolish  the 
school  system  altogether/  " 

Michigan  reports  that  "the  plan  of  free 
schools  has  been  in  operation  less  than  a  single 
term,  the  legislature  having  only  at  the  last 
session  abolished  the  rate  bill.  In  consequence 
of  the  schools  being  free,  the  length  of  time 
they  have  been  held  has  been  greatly  increased. 
In  some  districts  they  are  said  to  have  nearly 
twice  the  length  of  school  that  they  have  pre- 
viously had.  The  advantages  of  the  free-school 
system  are  so  manifest  that  it  was  adopted  in 
most  of  the  cities  and  large  towns  several  years 
since,  the  rate  being  abolished  by  public  vote. 
It  is  estimated  that  tuition  in  the  graded  schools 
is  at  least  ten  cents  a  month  cheaper  than  in  the 
schools  which  are  not  graded.'' 

A  New  Hampshire  superintendent,  even  in 
that  early  day,  finds  courage  to  protest  against 
the  study  of  grammar.  "How  vague  and  un- 
satisfactory the  ideas  which  our  pupils  gain 

33 


Fifty         from  such  terms  as  auxiliary,  antecedent,  correl- 

Tears  of  ative,  coordinate,  proposition,  passive,  imper- 

-,  ,  sonal,  infinitive,  logical,  synopsis,  etc."  "But 

music,''  he  writes,  "  is  now  a  regular  exercise, 

the  same  as  arithmetic  or  geography." 

The  superintendent  reports  that  in  New 
Jersey  there  are  696  districts  in  which  the 
schools  are  free  and  634  in  which  they  are  sup- 
ported in  part  by  tuition  fees  which  the  pupils 
pay.  "  If  the  action  necessary  to  make  schools 
free  is  not  taken  by  the  legislature  soon,  I  am 
confident  the  people  themselves  will  make 
them  free  by  their  own  voluntary  efforts." 

The  schools  of  New  York  were  not  free  to  all 
the  children  of  the  state  until  1867.  The  super- 
intendent of  that  state  speaks  of  its  public-school 
system  as  "but  an  orderly  plan  of  the  people  to 
educate  themselves."  At  that  time  the  city  of 
Brooklyn  had  a  course  of  study  which  was 
divided  into  six  primary  and  six  grammar  grades, 
with  a  thirteenth  grade  added  as  an  advanced 
course.  Promotions  were  made  semiannually 
after  "careful  examination  of  all  the  classes 
throughout  the  entire  school  at  the  same  time." 

34 


Ohio  reports  the  number  of  districts  in  which  Education 
the  teachers  ''boarded  round"  as  2025.  The  ^^^^^^^" 
average  number  of  pupils  per  teacher  in  the  ^.   .,^^ 
schools  of  Cincinnati  at  that  time  was  50.3  in 
the  district  school  and  4  8 . 9  in  the  intermediate. 
In  that  city  "the  phonic  method  has  now  been 
very  generally  adopted  in  the  schools  as  the  basis 
for  instruction  in  reading  in  the  lower  grades. 
Since  the  beginning  of  the  year  the  department 
of  drawing  has  been  thoroughly  reorganized. 
The  superintendent  of  drawing  gives  regular 
lessons  two  days  in  the  week  and  devotes  the 
remainder  of  his  time  to  supervision." 

High  schools  are  mentioned  in  the  report 
from  Pennsylvania: 

Except  in  the  matter  ofauthorizing  school  directors 
to  grade  the  schools  where  they  can  be  graded,  our 
school  law  makes  no  provision  for  the  encouragement 
of  higher  education.  A  district  may  tax  itself  to  estab- 
lish and  support  a  high  school,  but  the  state  lends  it 
no  helping  hand  in  doing  so. 

The  city  of  Philadelphia  reports  that  up- 
wards of  20,000  children  not  attending  any 
school  are  running  the  streets  **in  idleness  and 

35 


Fifty         vagabondism.  To  enact  a  compulsory-education 
Years  of  j^^  without  other  essential  provisions  would  be 

r,  J  idle  and  chimerical.  Not  unless  we  clothe  these 

t  due  at  ton 

20,000  children  and  place  them  in  point  of  ap- 
pearance on  a  level  with  those  who  now  occupy- 
almost  every  seat,  can  our  public  schools  open 
their  doors  for  these  outcasts  of  society  and 
render  them  the  same  facilities  afforded  to  the 
better  class  now  in  attendance." 

We  find  the  president  of  the  Board  of  Educa- 
tion of  that  city  offering  this  testimony  as  to  the 
unorganized  condition  of  the  schools : 

Had  the  public  schools  of  Philadelphia  the  very 
necessary  and  competent  services  of  a  city  superin- 
tendent to  interpret,  arrange,  and  execute  our  rules 
upon  this  and  other  kindred  matters  of  school  gov- 
ernment and  discipline,  how  readily  could  these  con- 
flicting views  be  harmonized  and  all  difficulties  and 
diversity  of  sentiment  among  the  teachers  adjusted. 
Let  us  hope  that  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when 
councils  will  see  the  imperative  necessity  of  making 
appropriation  necessary  to  secure  the  services  of  such 
an  executive  head  for  the  public  schools.  Our  duty  is 
simply  to  legislate.  We  need  a  proper  officer  to  exe- 
cute the  laws  essential  to  the  prosperity  and  unity  of 
the  system. 

36 


The  fifty  years  since  this  was  written  have  sup-  Education 
pUed  many  a  superintendent  to  city  boards  of  ^i  the  end 
education,  but  they  have  not  disclosed  many  ^.  ..^ 
boards  of  education  with  as  clear  a  notion  of 
their  duties  as  this  board  member  had. 

The  references  to  the  schools  of  Massachu- 
setts in  this  report  of  the  United  States  Com- 
missioner of  Education  are  particularly  valuable, 
for  enough  quotations  from  the  school  reports 
of  the  towns  are  given  to  enable  a  reader  to  con-  ^ 
struct  a  rather  clear  picture  of  the  educational 
situation  in  the  mother  commonwealth  shortly 
after  the  close  of  the  war.  The  number  of  public 
schools  in  the  state  for  1869  was  4959.  The 
average  length  of  school  was  eight  months  and 
four  days,  and  1085  male  and  6937  female 
teachers  were  employed.  There  were  in  the 
state  175  high  schools,  35  more  than  the  law 
required.  There  were  also  45  incorporated 
academies  and  481  private  schools  and  unin- 
corporated academies,in  which  the  amount  paid 
for  tuition  was  estimated  at  $593,005,  making 
an  aggregate  of  13,716,892.40  expended  in 
the  state  in  teaching  its  children.  There  are  a 

37 


Fifty         number  of  protests  in  the  reports  of  the  towns 
Tears  of  which  tell  in  an  incisive  way  what  difficulties 

^j       .     the  schools  were  contending  with.  Among:  them 

t  due  at  ton  ^  ^ 

are  such  statements  as  "One  fourth  of  the  time 
and  money  devoted  to  the  schools  is  wasted  and 
will  be  until  parents  manifest  an  increasing 
interest  in  the  intellectual  welfare  of  their  chil- 
dren and  consider  it  a  duty  to  keep  them  regu- 
larly at  school."  "It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that 
a  majority  of  those  who  vote  at  town  meeting 
against  sufficient  appropriations  for  a  full  term 
of  free  school  are  those  who  pay  small  taxes." 
"When  our  churches  are  magnificent  and  our 
houses  are  elegant,  our  temples  of  learning 
should  not  be  barns."  "To  make  a  child  think 
for  himself  is  the  teacher's  main  business.  He 
should  not  aim  to  cram  the  memory  of  children 
with  the  results  of  his  own  thinking,  but  stimu- 
late them  to  do  their  own  thinking."  "If  the 
teacher  would  teach  topics  in  such  a  way  that 
each  mind  could  grasp  the  thoughts,  instead  of 
requiring  pupils  to  commit  to  memory  only 
words,  we  should  seldom  be  obliged  to  hear 
the  too  frequent  remark,  *I  have  been  over  the 

38 


lessons  but  do  not  know  anything  about  them/  "  Education 
"Let  the  school  hours  and  studies  be  few  and  ^^iheEnd 
pleasant,  especially  to  the  beginner,  lest  he  ^.   .,^ 
learn  to  hate  them  before  he  knows  their  value 
and  become  a  truant  before  he  becomes   a 
scholar/'  "The  school  in  this  town  where  most 
attention  has  been  given  to  object  instruction 
has  done  more  work  in  the  regular  studies  than 
any  other  of  its  grade."  "There  should  be  one 
school  in  town  open  to  advanced  scholars  from 
all  parts  of  the  town  for  a  term  of  twelve  weeks 
at  least.  If  so  vast  a  majority  of  our  children 
cannot  go  to  the  high  school,  it  is  important  to 
take  measures  to  bring  some  of  the  high-school 
studies  to  them.*' 

In  1868  the  town  of  Fall  River  established 
half-time  schools  "for  children  between  the 
ages  of  5  and  15  employed  in  the  mills."  One 
half  of  these  children  went  to  school  in  the 
forenoon  and  worked  in  the  mill  in  the  after- 
noon, the  other  half  worked  in  the  morning 
and  went  to  school  in  the  afternoon.  Indian 
Orchard  had  a  similar  half-time  school.  It  is 
clear  from  the  ages  included  in  this  arrangement 

39 


Fifty         that  child-labor  laws  are  a  creation  of  the  last 
Tears  of  fifty  years. 

'American       rr^,         -^      r  r.  •        n  11 

jp  ,     ,.  Ine  city  01  Boston  in  1870  reported  that 

t  due  at  ion  •'  /  r 

lessons  in  vocal  and  physical  culture  have  been 
given  in  all  the  primary  schools.  Music  is  taught 
universally,  and  its  study  is  considered  of  much 
importance.  In  some  primary  schools  the  phonic 
system  of  teaching  reading  has  been  employed 
and  with  success.  There  are  thirteen  special 
teachers  of  sewing. 

In  1869  the  district-school  system  was  for  a 
second  time  abolished,  but  its  abolition  was  re- 
pealed the  next  year.  It  did  not  meet  its  doom 
in  Massachusetts  until  the  year  1882. 
/  In  short,  our  study  shows  that  though  in 
1867a  beginning  had  been  made  in  most  of  the 
activities  of  education,  nothing  more  than  a 
beginning  had  been  made.  The  development, 
therefore,  of  all  the  great  present-day  agencies 
of  education — free  graded  elementary  schools, 
intermediate  schools,  high  schools,  normal 
schools,  the  great  universities,  schools  for  the 
negro  and  the  Indian,  vocational  schools,  the 
great  foundations,  departments  in  universities 
40 


for  the  study  of  education,  statistical  informs-  Sducation 
tion  concerning  schools,  new  courses  of  study,  ^^  ^^^  ^^" 
\ a  vast  literature  about  teaching,  well-nigh  the  ^.  .,^ 
whole  present-day  science  of  education  (includ- 
ing school  administration,  child-study,  educa- 
tional psychology,  the  history  and  theory  of 
education,   school   hygiene,   and   educational 
standards  and  measurements),  and  very  nearly 
the  entire  machinery  of  school  supervision  (city 
superintendents,  supervising  principals,  super- 
visors  of  subjects,   and   state   inspectors   and 
agents) — is  a  growth  of  the  last  fifty  years.  This 
statement  refers  to  changes  so  colossal  that  the 
mere  effort  to  think  of  them  one  after  the  other  is 
stupefying,  but  we  have  not  begun  to  enumerate 
them  all.  Our  list  makes  no  mention  of  school 
buildings,  play  and  playgrounds,  compulsory 
education,  truant  schools,  juvenile  courts,  public 
libraries,  and  a  score  more  of  agencies  which 
have  been  developed  to  assist  the  school  in  its 
work.  This  whole  accumulation  of  progress  has 
come  about  so  gradually  that  it  is  only  when  we  . 
set  ourselves  consciously  to  unravel  its  history    \^ 
fc     that  we  become  aware  how  truly  marvelous  it  is. 

I 


CHAPTER  III 

ET  us  examine  its  several  parts  a  little  Some 
in  detail.  In  1 87 1  New  Jersey,  the  last  Changes 

state  in  the  United  States  to  do  so,  abol-  ^.   .,„^ 

Civilfmr 

ished  the  rate  bill,  and  the  schools  of  the  entire 
nation  became  definitely  free.  In  1866,  when 
James  A.  Garfield  made  his  report  to  the  House 
of  Representatives  urging  it  to  establish  a  national 
bureau  of  education,  he  referred  to  compulsory 
school  attendance  in  rather  hesitating  ^erms : 

The  genius  of  our  government  does  not  allow  us 
to  establish  a  compulsory  system  of  education,  as  is 
done  in  some  of  the  countries  of  Europe.  There  are 
states  in  this  Union,  however,  which  have  adopted  a 
compulsory  system,  and  perhaps  that  is  well.  It  is  for 
each  state  to  determine.  A  distinguished  gentleman 
from  Rhode  Island  told  me  lately  that  it  is  now  the 
law  in  that  state  that  every  child  within  its  borders 
shall  attend  school  and  that  every  vagrant  child  shall 
be  taken  in  charge  by  the  authorities  and  sent  to 
school.  It  may  be  well  for  other  states  to  pursue  the 
same  course;  but  probably  the  general  government 
can  do  nothing  of  the  sort. 

43 


Fifty  The  complaint  is  general  in  the  first  reports  of 

Years  of  ^^  school  authorities  which  the  Commissioner 

n/tyyipfi/'/Tfi 

^j       .     of  Education  reproduces  that  children  do  not 

tducation  ^ 

attend  school;  that  parents  are  very  remiss  in 
their  duty  of  sending  them.  Maine  reports  that 
"in  general  terms  truancy  and  absenteeism  de- 
prive us  of  at  least  25  per  cent  of  attainable 
results  in  the  educational  line/'  Massachusetts 
was  among  the  first  to  act,  passing  a  compulsory- 
education  law  in  1852.  Each  town  was  author- 
ized to  establish  "a  reform  school "  for  children 
between  the  ages  of  seven  and  sixteen  who,"  not 
attending  school  or  without  any  regular  occu- 
pation, are  growing  up  in  ignorance,*'  and  to 
send  such  children  there  instead  of  fining  them, 
if  it  is  thought  best.  Springfield  reports  that 
such  a  school  was  established  in  the  almshouse, 
but,  more  significantly,  that  an  ungraded  school 
has  also  been  established  where  habitual  truants 
"who  ought  to  be  sent  to  the  reform  school 
may  be  kept  under  instruction  until  they  can 
be  returned  to  the  graded  schools."  In  1870 
the  city  of  Boston  employed  ten  truant  officers 
who  gave  their  entire  time  to  investigating 

44 


cases  of  truancy  and  securing  the  attendance  of  Some 
absentees.  It  is  a  far  cry  from  these  beginnings  Changes 
to  the  more  wholesome  conditions  of  the  pres-  ^.  .,^^ 
ent  time.  In  1 9 1 6  all  the  states  but  one,  Mis- 
sissippi, and  certain  counties  of  Arkansas  had 
compulsory-attendance  laws ;  twenty-seven  of 
them  requiring  attendance  for  the  full  school 
year  and  the  others  for  a  specified  part  of  it,  in 
no  case  less  than  twelve  weeks.  In  1 870  the  aver- 
age number  of  years  of  schooling  of  two  hun- 
dred days  each  received  by  each  pupil  in  public 
and  private  schools  was  3.36;  in  1914  it  was 
6.16.  The  persistent  effort  to  secure  for  all  the 
children  their  right  to  an  education  which  has 
characterized  the  last  fifty  years  has  produced 
a  great  number  of  agencies  and  devices  for  the 
protection  of  children,  among  them  child-labor 
laws,  which  have  been  passed  by  most  of  the 
states  and  just  recently  by  the  nation  ( 1 9 1 6).  In 
1899  the  state  of  Illinois  created  a  juvenile  ^~^ 
court.  The  law  which  brought  that  wholesome 
child-saving  agency  into  being  has  since  been 
adopted  by  forty-four  states  and  the  District  of 
Columbia.  It  has  proved  itself  a  real  contribution 

45 


Fifty        to  the  world,  for  many  foreign  countries  have 
Years  of  adopted  it.  "I  observe/'  says  George  Sorel  in 

-, ,       .his  "  Reflections  on  Violence,"  "  that  nothing: 
taucatton  ,  ° 

is  more  remarkable  than  the  change  which 
has  taken  place  in  the  methods  of  bringing  up 
children;  formerly  it  was  believed  that  the 
rod  was  the  most  necessary  instrument  of  the 
schoolmaster;  nowadays  corporal  punishments 
have  disappeared  from  our  public  elementary 
schools/'  That  statement  is  not  literally  true  for 
the  United  States,  but  it  is  so  nearly  true  that  it 
may  stand  as  perhaps  the  most  significant  proof 
which  can  be  shown  that  civilization  has  really 
been  in  process  of  becoming  in  recent  years. 
The  modern  school  is  a  cheerful,  happy  place. 
In  it  teachers  train  rather  than  govern.  Its  first 
aim  is  to  inculcate  self-control.  Flogging  and 
a  pallid  quiet  are  no  longer  to  be  found  in  it. 
It  is  a  workshop  rather  than  a  disciplinary 
cell.  The  suggestion  which  was  made  in  the 
more  optimistic  years  of  its  first  decade  that  the 
twentieth  century  was  to  be  the  century  of  the 
child  may  not,  let  us  hope,  be  so  far  wrong 
after  all. 

46 


The  course  of  study  which  the  people  of  this  Some 
democracy  at  the  several  periods  of  its  history  Changes 
have  regarded  as  sufficient  to  prepare  their  chil- 
dren  for  the  work  of  life  is  a  pretty  good  index 
of  the  real  progress  of  the  nation.  The  period 
of  rigorous  Puritanism  from  1630  to  1750 
brought  up  its  children  on  the  hornbook,  the 
religious  primer,  the  Psalter,  the  New  and  the 
Old  Testament.  In  the  period  from  1750  to 
1800  the  spelling  book  took  the  place  of  the 
primer;  in  1789  arithmetic  was  required  by 
law  in  Massachusetts.  Geography  began  to  be 
"read"  here  and  there  about  the  year  1800. 
There  was  a  bit  of  English  grammar  in  the 
spelling  books,  and  brief  lessons  were  assigned 
in  that  subject  at  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  "  In  some  of  the  early  editions 
[of  the  third  part  of  my  Institute  published  in 
1785]  I  introduced  short  notices  of  the  geog- 
raphy and  history  of  the  United  States,  and  these 
led  to  more  enlarged  descriptions  of  the  coun- 
try,'* says  Noah  Webster.  History  was  taught 
only  in  this  incidental  way  until  the  second 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

47 


Fifty  There  was  imperative  need  for  expansion  of 

Tears  of  ^^  course  of  study.  The  first  address  delivered 

^  ,  before  the  American  Institute  of  Instruction 

tducation 

was  upon  the  "  Importance  of  Physical  Edu- 
cation," by  Dr.  J.  C.  Warren.  At  its  fourth 
meeting  (1834)  the  Institute  discussed  the  ques- 
tion "  Can  common  schools  be  conducted  prof- 
itably without  the  aid  of  bodily  punishment?" 
and  adopted  a  resolution  "  that  the  introduction 
of  vocal  music  into  our  schools  is  an  object  of 
high  importance  to  the  community,  and  the 
American  Institute  of  Instruction  do  hereby 
most  cordially  recommend  it  to  public  favor." 
A  resolution  of  1 8  3  8  declared  "  it  is  desirable 
that  the  teaching  of  vocal  music  should  be  in- 
troduced into  the  common  schools  as  soon  as  it 
may  be  practicable."  A  resolution  was  intro- 
duced in  1844  "that  the  time  now  devoted  to 
the  study  of  the  dead  languages  as  a  part  of  col- 
legiate education  may  be  better  employed  upon 
other  subjects,"  but  was  laid  on  the  table. 

In  1 87 1  the  Institute  listened  to  an  address 
on  "  Kindergartening  the  Gospel  for  Children," 
by  Miss  E.  P.  Peabody,  but  it  was  not  until  1882 

48 


that  it  recommended  "  the  teaching  of  draw-  Some 
ing,  not  as  an  accompHshment  but  as  a  language  Changes 
for  the  graphic  presentation  of  the  facts  and  ^.  ., 
forms  of  objects." 

The  spirit  of  Pestalozzi  brooded  over  the 

practice  of  education  in  the  United  States  about 

* , . — ■ 

the  middle  of  the  last  century.  JEducation, 
he  said,  is  not  memorizing  the  contents  of  c — — 
books,  it  is  learning  to  use  one's  own  mind  in 
doing  something.  Itiygrowth  trom  within 
outward,  not  from  without  inward.  The  dull 
bookwork  of  reading,  writing,  and  ciphering 
was  touched  with  life.  The  inclusion  of  object 
lessons  introduced  oral  instruction,  with  all  its 
beneficent,  lively,  free  conversation  about  real 
things  in  place  of  the  mumbling  about  abstrac- 
tions which  had  previously  comprised  so  large 
a  part  of  school  work. 

The  Schoolmaster  of  Yverdon  transformed 
the  schools  of  America  as  well  as  of  Europe. 
"  The  importation  of  the  Pestalozzian  methods 
of  the  Home  and  Colonial  School  Society  into 
the  United  States  is  the  most  striking  develop- 
ment in  American  elementary  education  during 

49 


Fifty        the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,"  says  Pro- 

Tears  of  fessor  Parker.  The  first  improvement  was  the 

^American  •   ^     j      ^-         r    u-     ^  i 

^  ,  introduction  or  obiect  lessons  as  an  experiment 

taucatton  "^  ^ 

at  the  Oswego  Normal  School.  Object  teaching 
soon  became  the  leading  subject  for  discussion 
in  teachers'  institutes  and  spread  widely  in  the 
schools.  In  1 870  object  lessons  began  to  develop 
into  instruction  in  natural  science  as  a  system- 
atic study  for  children  in  the  elementary  schools. 
That  in  turn  gave  place  to  nature  study  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  dis- 
tinction between  them  being  that  nature  study 
is  the  observational  study  of  living  objects  and 
processes  for  the  sake  of  becoming  familiar  with 
them,  while  the  natural  science  which  it  dis- 
placed was  a  highly  technical  endeavor  to  master 
the  general  principles  of  science,  which  usually 
resulted  in  only  a  verbal  knowledge  of  them. 
Geography  was  one  of  the  sciences  of  the 
Greeks.  Its  modern  form  is  due  to  Humboldt 
and  Carl  Ritter.  Ritter,  the  scientist,  about  1 807 
came  under  the  influence  of  Pestalozzi,  the 
teacher,  and  undertook  to  prepare  "  a  treatise 
in  his  method  on  Geography."  From  that  time 

50 


"  the  first  step  in  a  knowledge  of  geography  is  Some 
to  know  thoroughly  the  district  where  we  live/*  Changes 
This  ideal  teaching  of  geography  as  a  study  of        ., 
m^n's  relation  to  the  earth,  based  on  the  per- 
sonal investigation  of  every  student  who  at- 
tempts to  pursue  it,is  still  fighting  its  way  against 
mnemonic  devotion  to  a  text.  Arnold  Guyot,  the 
pupil  of  Ritter,  came   from   Switzerland  to 
Massachusetts  in  the  year  1848.  For  six  years 
he  was  employed  as  an  inspector  and  institute 
lecturer  by  the  Massachusetts  State  Board  of 
Education.  In  1854  he  was  made  professor  of 
geology  and  physical  geography  at  Princeton. 

Of  his  work  he  wrote: 

« 

During  more  than  nine  years  it  was  my  privilege 
to  address  thousands  of  teachers  in  the  normal  schools 
of  Massachusetts  and  New  Jersey,  and  in  the  teachers* 
institutes,  on  the  subject  of  geographical  teaching  and 
the  reform  so  much  needed  in  that  important  depart- 
ment of  instruction. 

About  the  year  1866  he  published  a  series  of 
textbooks  and  also  a  manual  on  "  Geographical 
Teaching."  The  task  of  carrying  on  the  reform 
in  geography  teaching  which  Guyot  had  begun 

51 


Fifty        fell  to  Francis  W.  Parker.  In  season  and  out  of 
Tears  of  season  he  preached  its  claims  for  a  lifetime.  He 

-, ,  trained  thousands  of  teachers,  addressed  hun- 

cducatton 

dreds  of  institutes,  and  in  1889  published  his 
"How  to  teach  Geography,"  "a  practical  ex- 
position of  methods  and  devices  in  teaching 
geography  which  apply  the  principles  and  plans 
of  Ritter  and  Guyot"  his  editor  calls  it.  But  with 
these  men  the  modern  teaching  of  geography 
had  only  begun.  Their  work  has  been  carried 
forward  by  scores  of  disciples  and  in  every  part 
of  the  land. 

In  1 8  2 1  Warren  Colburn  published  his  "First 
Lessons  in  Arithmetic  on  the  Plan  of  Pesta- 
lozzi."  The  object  of  this  book,  as  of  Pestalozzi's 
teaching  itself,  was  to  banish  ciphering  as  the 
mere  carrying  out  of  rules.  Its  whole  purpose 
was  to  do  away  with  ununderstandable  abstrac- 
tions by  teaching  little  children  in  their  very 
first  lessons  that  all  numbers  are  numbers  of 
things.  "The  idea  of  number  is  first  acquired 
by  observing  sensible  objects,"  he  said,  and  to 
prevent  otherwise  inevitable  confusion  no  fig- 
ures were  introduced  in  the  first  fifty-five  pages 

52 


of  the  book.  Number  ideas  and  number  names  Some 
and  mental  operations  with  numbers  were  given  Changes 

the  complete  rieht  of  way  over  figures,  rules,  ^!^.^^.,„i 

.   1      .  r   1  Civiimr 

written  work,  and  the  ciphering  of  the  past. 

This  plan  commended  itself  to  great  numbers 
of  teachers,  and  the  textbook  which  presented 
it  was  very  widely  used.  About  the  year  1870 
an  intensified  Pestalozzianism,  known  as  the 
Grube  method  of  teaching  arithmetic,  became 
very  popular  in  the  United  States.  Each  numeral, 
according  to  this  method,  was  treated  by  itself, 
and  the  student  learned  to  put  it  through  all  the 
fundamental  operations  before  he  was  allowed 
to  pass  on  to  the  next  number.  Such  exhaustive 
thoroughness  was  not  only  impossible  to  chil- 
dren but  undesirable  on  the  part  of  anyone,  and 
the  rise  of  the  Grube  method  was  followed  by 
its  fall  in  the  early  part  of  the  period.  But  in- 
terest in  the  proper  teaching  of  arithmetic  has 
grown  with  the  years.  The  thinking  arithmetic 
which  Warren  Colburn  struggled  for  has  been 
the  aim  not  of  all  but  of  every  informed  teacher 
who  has  come  after  him.  Next  to  this  the  most 
noteworthy  change  has  been  in  a  persistent  effort 

53 


Fifty  to  modernize  our  rather  archaic  textbooks  by 
Years  of  omitting  all  subjects,  methods,  and  problems 
^j  .  which  are  not  warranted  by  obvious  applica- 
bility. A  third  change  which  has  come  about  in 
arithmetic  is  the  extended  use  of  standardized 
tests  to  measure  the  work  which  children  are 
able  to  do  in  it.  We  shall  speak  of  these  later. 
^  The  teaching  of  geography  and  arithmetic 
had  begun  to  be  rationalized  here  and  there 
before  the  end  of  the  Civil  War.  That  work 
went  forward.  Object  lessons  had  been  intro- 
duced, and  natural  science  and  nature  study  fol- 
lowed them.  New  methods  of  teaching  pupils 
to  read  began,  as  we  have  seen,  to  find  favor.  The 
worst  method  of  teaching  reading,  the  alpha- 
bet method,  was  practically  the  only  method 
used  from  the  earliest  days  of  instruction  in 
that  subject  by  the  Greeks  down  to  our  period. 
Comenius  and  the  Jansenists  found  a  better  way, 
but  their  discovery  did  not  change  the  universal 
ABC  practice.  The  author  of  Worcester's 
"Primer,*'  1828,  declared  in  his  preface: 

It  is  not,  perhaps,  very  important  that  a  child 
should  know  the  letters  before  it  begins  to  read.  It 

54 


may  learn  first  to  read  words,  by  seeing  them,  hearing  Some 

them  pronounced,  and  having  their  meanings  illus-  Changes 

trated ;  and  afterwards  it  may  learn  to  analyze  them  since  the 

or  name  the  letters  of  which  they  are  composed.  Civil M^r 

Horace  Mann  vigorously  advocated  the  word 
method.  But  since  the  order  of  learning  accord- 
ing to  Pestalozzi  was  from  simple  to  complex, 
there  must  be  long  drills,  he  said,  upon  the 
letters  and  after  that  long  drills  in  forming  letters 
into  syllables  and  in  making  syllables  into  words. 
Consequently  the  influence  of  Pestalozzi  and 
his  followers  upon  the  proper  teaching  of  read- 
ing was  harmful.  It  was  not  until  the  year  1 870 
that  the  ABC  method  began  to  be  generally 
forsaken;  so  that  the  modern  teaching  of  read- 
ing belongs  almost  entirely  to  the  last  fifty  years. 
The  Pestalozzian  practice  of  reducing  each  sub- 
ject to  its  lowest  terms  or  elements  and  practic- 
ing at  great  length  upon  them  and,  finally,  after 
this  great  mass  of  meaningless  exercising  had 
been  performed,  bringing  the  elements  together 
into  letters  or  words  or  sentences  had  as  bad  an 
effect  upon  the  teaching  of  writing  as  it  had 
upon  the  teaching  of  reading.  The  lessons  which 

55 


Fifty         were  given  were  not  really  lessons  in  writing. 
Tears  of  'Y\i^  letters  were  analyzed  into  strokes, — the 

-  ,  straight,  the  outcurved,  and  the  incurved.  One 

tducation         ^ 

must  have  drilled  upon  the  strokes  at  very  great 
length  before  he  was  considered  fit  to  attempt 
to  shape  letters  or  to  write  words  and  sentences. 
Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  the  educational  bill  of 
fare  was  pretty  meager. 

In  1 8  69  several  of  the  leading  manufacturers 
of  Massachusetts  appealed  to  the  legislature  to 
direct  the  Board  of  Education  to  report  "some 
definite  plan  for  introducing  schools  for  draw- 
ing or  instruction  in  drawing  free  to  all  men, 
women,  and  children  in  all  the  towns  of  the 
commonwealth  of  more  than  5000  inhabit- 
ants," saying  "every  branch  of  manufactures 
in  which  the  citizens  of  Massachusetts  are  en- 
gaged requires  in  the  details  of  the  processes 
connected  with  it  some  knowledge  of  drawing 
and  other  arts  of  design  on  the  part  of  the  skilled 
workmen  engaged."  The  Board  of  Education, 
being  deeply  impressed  with  the  importance 
of  the  subject,  intrusted  its  consideration  to  a 
special  committee,  which  subsequently  reported 

56 


that  the  almost  total  neglect  of  this  branch  of  Some 
learning  in  past  times  had  been  a  great  defect;  Changes 

that  we  were  behind  many  other  nations  in  all  ^.   .,„^ 

''  ,       LiviLWar 

the  means  of  art  culture,  a  defect  felt  by  native 
artisans  and  mechanics,  since  "foreign  work- 
men occupy  the  best  and  most  responsible  places 
in  our  factories  and  workshops";  that  agents 
should  be  employed  to  go  through  the  com- 
monwealth and  interest  the  people  in  this  most 
important  subject;  and  that  "teachers  should  be 
required  to  be  qualified  to  instruct  in  free-hand 
drawing,  and  the  work  should  be  begun  in  the 
primary  departments  and  should  be  continued 
with  zeal  and  fidelity  through  the  period  of 
school  life."  As  a  result,  a  law  was  passed  in 
1870  including  drawing  among  the  branches 
of  learning  required  to  be  taught  in  the  public 
schools  and  authorizing  cities  and  towns  of  more 
than  10,000  inhabitants  to  provide  for  free  in- 
struction in  industrial  or  mechanical  drawing  to 
persons  over  fifteen  years  of  age,  either  in  day  or 
evening  schools.  A  supervisor  of  drawing  was 
imported  from  England  in  1870,  and  in  1875 
the  Boston  Normal  Art  School  was  established. 

SI 


Fifty  Manual  training  was  introduced  to  the  United 

Tears  of  States  by  an  exhibit  made  by  a  Russian  institu- 

^  ,       .     tion  at  the  Centennial  Exposition  in  Philadel- 
taucatton  ^ 

phia  in  1 876.  Schoolmen  fought  it  bitterly  for 
a  time,  but  whereas  in  1 890  only  37  cities  had 
made  a  place  for  it  in  their  schools,  by  1898 
there  were  146  cities  in  which  it  was  taught. 

The  movement  for  school  instruction  in 
drawing,  which  had  its  beginning  in  Boston  in 
1 870,  was  greatly  stimulated  by  the  Centennial 
Exposition  of  1 876.  Nation-wide  instruction  in 
the  fine  and  industrial  arts,  with  all  that  mar- 
velous development  of  taste  and  appreciation 
shown  in  more  recent  American  manufactures 
and  homes,  is  the  result  of  that  beginning. 

In  1 870  there  were  less  than  a  dozen  kinder- 
gartens in  the  United  States,  and  all  save  one  of 
them  were  conducted  in  the  German  language; 
the  one  English-speaking  kindergarten  had 
been  opened  in  Boston  in  1 860  by  Miss  Eliza- 
beth Peabody.  Since  that  time  the  kindergarten 
has  made  its  way  into  every  corner  of  this  land. 
In  1 9 14  there  were  but  6  states  whose  laws 
did  not  provide  for  kindergartens,  and  in  1915 

58 


there  were  9486  private  and  public  kinder-  Some 
gartens,   with    10,877  teachers  and  486,800  Changes 

students  in  them.  It  is  likely  that  by  this  time  ^.   .,„^ 

/  "^  Civil  yyar 

not  less  than  4,000,000  children  have  profited 
by  its  training,  and  perhaps  as  many  as  30,000 
young  women  have  been  instructed  in  the  fine 
art  of  providing  opportunities  for  beginning 
their  education  to  young  children,  for  whom 
the  beginning  is  still  the  most  important  part  of 
their  entire  course,  even  as  it  was  to  the  discern- 
ing mind  of  Plato.  The  introduction  of  the  kin- 
dergarten into  American  education  has  been 
called  "  the  greatest  step  in  the  educational  his- 
tory of  the  country,  with  the  exception  of  the 
founding  of  normal  schools."  And  perhaps  the 
most  significant  change  which  the  kindergarten 
has  wrought,  it  has  brought  about  indirectly, 
through  its  wholesome  modification  of  the 
work  which  children  do  in  the  primary  grades 
and  of  the  spirit  in  which  they  do  it,  rather  than 
directly  through  its  own  instruction. 

For  a  comparative  study  of  the  changes 
which  have  taken  place  in  common  schools, 
that  is,  the  public  elementary  and  high  schools 

59 


Fifty         maintained  by  state  and  local  taxation,  we  can- 
Tears  of  ^^^  Jq  better  than  examine  the  following  table 

-, ;  from  the  report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Educa- 

tducation  ^ 

tion  for  the  year  1 9 1 6. 

COMMON-SCHOOL  STATISTICS  OF  THE  UNITED 


Total  population 

Persons  five  to  eighteen  years 
of  age 

Pupils  enrolled  (duplicates  ex- 
cluded)   

Per  cent  of  total  population 
enrolled 

Per  cent  of  persons  five  to 
eighteen  years  of  age  enrolled 

Average  daily  attendance    .    . 

Relation  of  same  to  enrollment 
(percent) 

Average  length  of  school  term 
(days) 

Total  number  of  days  attended 
by  all  pupils 

Average  number  of  days  at- 
tended by  each  person  five 
to  eighteen 

Average  number  of  days  at- 
tended by  each  pupil  enrolled 


Male  teachers    . 
Female  teachers 


Whole  number  of  teachers .    . 

Per  cent  of  male  teachers  .    . 

Average  monthly  wages  of  male 
teachers*  

Average  monthly  wages  of  fe- 
male teachers     .    .    .    .    . 

Average  for  all  teachers*    .    . 

Ntunber  of  schoolhouses  ^  .    . 

Value  of  all  school  property    . 


1870 


''  38,558,371 

2  12,055,443 

6,871,522 

17.82 

S7-00 
4.077,347 

59-3 

*  132.2 

539.053,423 

44.7 
78.4 


77,529 
122,986 


200,515 
38.7 


$28.54 

116,312 

^130,383^008 


1875 


'  43,700,554 

8  13,405,200 

8,785,678 

20.10 

65-54 
5,248,114 

59-7 

130.4 

684,189,477 

51.0 

77-9 


108,791 
149,074 


257.865 
42.2 


$32.55 

157.364 

$192,013,666 


1880 


*  50,155,783 

2  15,065,767 

9,867,505 

19.67 

65.50 
6,144.143 

62.3 

130.3 

800,719,970 

53.1 
81. 1 


122,795 
163,798 


286,593 
42.8 


$29.96 

178,122 

$209,571,718 


1885 


»  56,221,868 

^  16,773,190 

11,398,024 

20.27 

67.96 

7.297,529 

64.0 

130.7 

953,451.056 

56.8 
83.6 


121,762 
204,154 


325,916 
37.4 


$34-22 

205,315 
$263,668,536 


*  The  figures  for  this  year  are  subject  to  correction. 
2  United  States  census.  '  Estimated. 


60 


The  number  of  persons  from  five  to  eight-  Some 
een  years  of  age  in  the  United  States  in  1 9 1 4  Changes 

was  a  little  more  than  twice  as  many  as  in  1 870,  ^^^^, „5 

,  '       Ctvtlfmr 

but  the  number  of  pupils  enrolled  in  school 

STATES  IN  VARIOUS  YEARS  — GENERAL  STATISTICS 


1890 

1895 

1900 

1905 

1910 

19141 

2  62,622,250 

8  68,844,341 

2  75,602,515 

8  82,584,061 

«  91,972,266 

98,781,324 

2  18,543,201 

3  19,911,050 

2  21,404,322 

3  23,410,800 

2  24,239,948 

26,002,153 

12,722,581 

14,243,765 

15,503,110 

16,468,300 

17,813,852 

I9>i53,786 

20.32 

20.69 

20.51 

19.94 

19.56 

19.39 

68.61 

71-54 

72.43 

70.35 

73.49 

73.66 

8,153.63s 

9,548,722 

10,632,772 

11,481,531 

12,827,307 

14,216,459 

64.1 

67.0 

68.6 

69.7 

72.1 

74.2 

134.7 

139-5 

144.3 

150.9 

157-5 

158.7 

1,098,232,725 

i,33i»77S.20' 

1,534,822,633 

1,732,845,238 

2,011,477,065 

2,255,657,142 

59.2 

66.9 

71.8 

74.0 

83.0 

86.7 
1 17.8 

86.3 

93.5 

99.0 

105.2 

113.0 

125,525 

129,706 

126,588 

"0,532 

110,481 

114,662 

238,397 

268,336 

20,474 

349»737 

412,729 

465,396 

363,922 

398,042 

423,062 

460,269 

523,210 

580,058 

34.5 

32.6 

29.9 

24.0 

21. 1 

19.8 

$46.82 

$46.53 

$55.04 

$68.86 

$79.94 

$39.41 

$38.93 

$42.69 

$53.40 

$62.57 

J^37-47 

$41.02 

$45.11 

$51.10 

$61.70 

$66.07 

224,526 

239,630 

248,279 

256,826 

265,474 

276,460 

J^342, 531,791 

$440,666,022 

$550,069,217 

$733*446,805 

$1,091,007,512 

$1,444,666,859 

*  Several  states  are  not  included  in  this  average. 

•  Including  buildings  rented. 


61 


Fifty 
Tears  of 
^American 
Education 


COMMON-SCHOOL  STATISTICS  OF  THE  UNITED 


1870 

1875 

1880 

1885 

Receipts : 

From  income  of  perma- 
nent funds  and  rents    . 
From  state  taxes .... 
From  local  taxes .... 
From  all  other  sources      . 

Total  received  .... 

' 

Per  cent  of  total  derived  from  — 
Income  of  permanent  fimds 

and  rents 

State  taxes 

Local  taxes 

All  other  sources      .    .    . 

Expenditures : 

For  sites,  buildings,  fiuni- 
ture,  libraries,  and  appa- 
ratus    

For   salaries   of   superin- 
tendents and  teachers    . 

For  all  other  purposes  .    . 

fe7.832.566 

fS4i7",2So 

$55,942,972 

$72,878,993 

Total  expended    .    .    . 

Expenditure  per  capita  of  pop- 
iilation 

^3,396,666 
$1.64 

$83,504,007 
$1.91 

$78,094,687 
$1.56 

$110,328,375 
$1.96 

Expenditure  per  pupil  in  aver- 
age attendance : 

For  sites,  buildings,  etc.   . 

For  salaries 

For  all  other  purposes .    . 

$g.28 

$10.43 

$9.10 

$9-99 

Total    expenditure    per 
pupil 

Ji5-5S 

$15-91 

$12.71 

$15.12 

Per  cent  of  expenditure  de- 
voted to — 
Sites,  buildings,  etc.     .    . 

Salaries 

All  other  purposes   .    .    . 
Average  expenditure  per  day 
for  each  pupil  (cents)  — 

For  salaries 

For  all  purposes  .... 

59-7 

7.0 
11.8 

65.5 

8.0 
12.2 

71.6 

7.0 

9-7 

66.1 

7.6 
11.6 

62 


STATES  IN  VARIOUS  YEARS  — FINANCIAL  STATISTICS  Some 

Changes 
since  the 
CivilWar 


1890 

1895 

1900 

1905 

.  1910 

1914  1  . 

$7,744-765 

$7,800,740 

$9,152,274 

$13,194,042 

$14,096,555 

$16,916,690 

26,345,323 

34,638,098 

37,886,740 

44,349,295 

64,604,701 

87,895,320 

97,222,426 

118,915,304 

149,486,845 

210,167,770 

312,221,582 

425,457,487 

11,882,292 

15,210,769 

23,240,130 

34,107,962 

42,140.859 

31,473,977 

$143,194,806 

$176,564,911 

$219,765,989 

$301,819,069 

$433,063,697 

$561,743,474 

5-4 

4.4 

4.2 

4.4 

3-2 

3.01 

18.4 

19.6 

17.2 

14-7 

14.9 

15-65 

67.9 

67.3 

68.0 

69.6 

72.1 

75-74 

8-3 

8.7 

10.6 

"•3 

9.8 

5.60 

$26,207,041 

$29,436,940 

$35,450,820 

$56,416,168 

$69,978,370 

$91,606,460 

91,836,484 

113,872,388 

137,687.746 

177,462,981 

253,915,170 

323,610,915 

22,463,190 

32,499,951 

41,826,052 

57,737,5" 

102,356,894 

139,859,771 

$140,506,715 

$175,809,279 

$214,964,618 

$291,616,660 

$426,250,434 

$555,077,146 

$2.24 

$2.55 

$2.84 

$3-53 

$4.64 

$5.62 

$3.21 

$3.08 

$3-33 

$4.91 

$5.46 

$6.44 

11.26 

"•93 

12.9s 

15.46 

19.79 

22.76 

2.76 

3-4° 

3-93 

5 -03 

7.98 

9-84 

?i7-23 

$18.41 

$20.21 

$25.40 

$33-23 

$39-04 

18.6 

16.7 

16.S 

19-3 

16.41 

16.50 

65.4 

64.8 

64.0 

60.9 

59.60 

58-30 

16.0 

18.5 

19-5 

19.8 

23-99 

25.20 

8.4 

8.6 

9.0 

10.2 

12.6 

14-34 

12.8 

13.2 

14.0 

16.8 

21. 1 

24.60 

'^  The  figures  for  this  year  ^  subject  to  correction. 


63 


Fifty        was  nearly  three  times  as  many  in  19 14  as  in 
Tears  of    1870,  while  the  average  daily  attendance  in 

^  ,  I Q 1 4  was  more  than  three  times  that  of  1 870. 

tducatton     ^   ^  ' 

The  average  number  of  days  attended  by  each 
person  in  1870  was  44.7,  in  19 14  it  was  86.7. 
The  average  monthly  wages  of  teachers  has  in- 
creased from  $28. 54  to  $66. 07,  while  the  num- 
ber of  schoolhouses  has  more  than  doubled, 
and  the  value  of  school  property  was  more  than 
eleven  times  as  great  in  1 9 14  as  in  1 870.  More- 
over, the  funds  available  for  the  maintenance 
of  public  schools  were  nearly  four  times  as  great 
in  1 9 14  as  they  were  but  twenty- three  years 
before,  in  1 892.  Surely  this  is  a  record  of  which 
a  country  may  well  be  proud. 

But  the  table  does  not  by  any  means  tell  the 
complete  story  of  the  changes  which  have  taken 
place.  The  first  graded  schools  came  into  being 
about  i860.  Before  that  time  primary  schools 
were  not^  generally  regarded  as  a  part  of  the 
school  system,  but  were  thought  of  as  things 
apart  and  were  very  indifferently  treated.  They 
had  to  make  their  way  into  the  system  very 
much  in  the  same  way  that  the  kindergartens 

64 


have  since  made  theirs.  The  high  schools  also  Some 
were  at  first  supplementary  schools.  They  too  (Changes 
had  to  be  integrated  into  the  system.  Supervi- 
sion  of  instruction  is  almost  wholly  a  thing  of 
the  last  fifty  years.  The  first  city  superintendent 
took  office  in  Buffalo  in  1837.  Providence  fol- 
lowed in  1839;  New  Orleans  in  1 84 1 ;  Cleve- 
land in  1844;  Baltimore  in  1849;  Cincinnati 
in  1850;  Boston  in  1851;  New  York,  San 
Francisco,  and  Jersey  City  in  1852;  Newark 
and  Brooklyn  in  1853;  Chicago  and  St.  Louis 
in  1854;  Philadelphia  not  until  1 8  8  3 .  A  school 
system  without  a  superintendent  is  practically 
unthought  of  at  the  present  time.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  this  half  century  it  was  the  rule  and 
its  opposite  the  rare  exception.  It  was  in  1867 
that  William  Torrey  Harris  became  superintend- 
ent of  schools  of  St.  Louis,  beginning  thirteen 
years  of  almost  unequaled  service  as  educator 
of  the  American  people.  The  course  of  study 
which  he  made,  the  conceptions  of  education 
which  he  championed, — as,  for  example, "  Our 
American  idea  rests  on  this  principle:  not  what 
the  teacher  does  for  the  pupil,  but  what  he  gets 

65 


Fifty         the  pupil  to  do  for  himself  is  of  value,*'  "  Every 
Tears  of  step  toward  the  mastery  of  the  printed  page  is 

r^  J       .a  Step  toward  freedom  from  and  independence 
tducation        /^  ^    ^ 

of  living  teachers.  Thus  our  education  is  a  giv- 
ing of  the  conventionalities  of  a  perpetual  self- 
education," —  and  the  yournal  of  Speculative 
Philosophy  which  he  edited  (the  first  periodi- 
cal devoted  to  philosophy  anywhere  published 
in  the  English  tongue)  demonstrate  for  all 
time  what  the  office  of  city  superintendent  of 
schools  at  its  best  may  be. 

"The  history  of  education  since  the  time  of 
Horace  Mann,"  says  Dr. Harris,  "is  very  largely 
an  account  of  the  successive  modifications  in- 
troduced into  elementary  schools  through  the 
direct  or  indirect  influenceof  the  normal  school." 
The  42  normal  schools  with  which  our  period 
started  had  increased  to  273  in  19 14,  232  of 
them  being  public  and  4 1  private  schools.  Be- 
sides, there  were  11 89  public  and  292  private 
high  schools  offering  training  courses  for  teach- 
ers. In  all  a  total  of  13 1,998  students  were  being 
made  acquainted  with  the  functions  of  the 
teacher  and  habituated  under  direction  ta  the 
66 


work  of  teaching.  The  first  normal  schools  re-  Some 
ceived  their  pupils  from  the  elementary  schools.  Changes 
Framingham's  requirements  in  1 867  were  that  ^.  .,j^ 
the  candidate  must  be  at  least  sixteen  years  of 
age,  must  declare  his  intention  to  teach  in  the 
schools  of  Massachusetts,  and  "must  present  a 
certificate  of  good  physical,  intellectual,  and 
moral  character,  and  pass  a  satisfactory  exami- 
nation in  reading,  spelling,  writing,  defining, 
grammar,  geography,  and  arithmetic."  "The 
course  of  study,"  says  this  same  circular  of  1 867, 
"includes  reading,  with  analysis  of  sounds  and 
vocal  gymnastics;  writing;  spelling,  with  deri- 
vations and  definitions;  punctuation;  grammar, 
with  analysis  of  the  English  language;  arith- 
metic; algebra;  geometry;  physical  and  political 
geography,  with  map  drawing;  physiology;  bot- 
any; zoology;  natural  philosophy;  astronomy; 
mental  and  moral  philosophy;  school  laws; 
theory  and  art  of  teaching;  civil  polity  of  Massa- 
chusetts and  the  United  States;  English  liter- 
ature; vocal  music;  drawing.  The  Latin  and 
French  languages  may  be  pursued  as  optional 
studies,  but  not  to  the  neglect  of  the  English 

67 


Fifty         course."  And  all  this  was  to  be  done  in  a  two- 

Years  of  yg^r  course !  Dr.  Harris  declared  at  the  semi- 

merican  ^gj^tennial  celebration  of  the  founding  of  the 
Education  . 

Framingham  Normal  School,  in  1 8  8  8,  that  "all 

normal-school  work  in  the  country  follows  sub- 
stantially one  tradition  .  .  .  and  this  traces  back 
to  the  course  laid  down  at  Lexington  in  1839." 
There  have  been  great  departures  from  that 
tradition  since  1867.  Normal  schools  now  re- 
quire their  students  to  be  graduates  of  high 
schools  and  find  a  two-year  course  all  too  short 
for  proper  instruction  in  the  art  of  teaching.  If 
we  compare  the  training  which  they  give  now 
with  the  training  of  fifty  years  ago,  their  earlier 
efforts  will  be  seen  to  be  but  a  promise  and  be- 
ginning of  the  larger  and  more  helpful  work 
which  they  are  doing  to-day. 

The  first  teachers'  institute  was  assembled  by 
Dr.  Henry  Barnard  in  Hartford,  Connecticut, 
in  1839.^  He  regarded  it  as  only  a  temporary 
device  for  giving  teachers  an  "opportunity  to 
revise  and  extend  their  knowledge  of  the  studies 

^  Jacob  S.  Denman  organized  his  first  teachers*  institute  at  Ithaca, 
on  April  4,  1843. 

68 


usually  pursued  in  district  schools  and  of  the  best  Some 
methods  of  school  arrangements,  instruction,  Changes 
and  government  under  the  recitations  and  lee-  ^.   .. 
tures  of  experienced  and  well-known  teachers 
and  educators."  This  "temporary  device"  has 
lasted  for  seventy-seven  years  and  has  become  a 
permanent  feature  of  the  school  life  of  every 
state.  The  purpose  of  the  institute  has  not 
changed.  The  words  of  its  founder  still  state  its 
program.  In  every  corner  of  the  land  it  provides 
a  means  of  educational  rededication  and  pro- 
fessional renewing  and  bids  fair  to  last  in  some 
form  or  other  as  long  as  children  and  schools 
and  teachers  exist. 

The  spread  of  these  two  agencies  for  the 
training  of  teachers  has  during  the  last  fifty 
years  been  the  distinctive  thing  about  them. 
While  their  work  has  been  intensified,  their 
benefits  have  been  made  nearly  universal.  But 
three  new  agencies  for  professional  improve- 
ment have  been  created  within  that  period. 
One  of  them  is  the  summer  school,  another  the 
Teachers'  Reading  Circle,  and  the  third  is  uni- 
versity-extension courses.  Chautauquas,   after 

69 


Fifty         the  type  of  their  original  in  New  York  State, 

Tears  of  j^^yg  i^^^j^  h.^\d,  in  many  places.  Summer  schools 

^American  it  ,  ^      r  r 

^  ,  .  nave  become  almost  a  regular  feature  of  nor- 
mal-school, university,  and  college  work.  And 
university-extension  teaching,  after  a  period 
of  lethargy,  now  seems  to  be  firmly  established 
both  as  a  duty  and  a  privilege  of  most  of  the  great 
teaching  centers.  Certain  states  have  thought 
it  so  indispensable  that  they  have  made  it  an 
integral  part  of  their  educational  work.  The 
Teachers'  Reading  Circle  was  the  invention  of 
an  Ohio  teacher  in  the  year  1882.  It  is  now  a 
nearly  nation-wide  institution. 
"^  If  we  turn  from  elementary  education,  and 
the  special  agencies  more  particularly  charged 
with  conserving  it,  to  secondary  and  higher 
education,  we  shall  find  the  same  phenomenal 
changes  at  work  there  also.  The  high  school 
had  but  a  fitful  and  uncertain  status  fifty  years 
ago.  In  no  department  of  education  has  such 
amazing  development  taken  place  in  the  last 
half  century  as  in  this.  In  1826  Massachusetts 
directed  every  town  of  500  households  to  em- 
ploy a  master  to  teach  United  States  history, 
70 


bookkeeping,  geometry,  surveying,  and  alge-  Some 

bra;  and  every  town  of  4000  inhabitants  to  Changes 

employ  a  master  to  teach  Greek  and  Latin,  his-  ^.   .,„^ 
^     ^         .  .  .  .  Civtltmr 

tory,  rhetoric,  and  logic.  It  vv^as  the  intention  of 

this  law  to  universalize  the  high  school  within 
the  state.  A  law  passed  in  1848  brought  it  into 
being  here  and  there  in  Ohio.  Legal  permission 
was  given  to  organize  higher  grades  in  the  pub- 
lic schools  of  Iowa  in  1849,  ^^^  county  high 
schools  were  authorized  there  in  1 8  5  8 .  Boards  of 
education  of  union  free  school  districts  were  au- 
thorized to  establish  academical  departments  in 
1 8  64  in  New  York  State.  Maryland  legislated  to 
abolish  academies  and  substitute  high  schools 
for  them  in  1865.  The  high  school  seemed  so 
desirable  and  necessary  that  some  communities 
established  it  without  waiting  for  authoriza- 
tion of  law.  Efforts  were  made  to  prevent  this. 
In  1872  Judge  Cooley's  decision  in  the  Kal- 
amazoo case  established  the  principle  that  "edu- 
cation not  merely  in  the  rudiments,  but  in  an 
enlarged  sense  was  regarded  as  an  important 
practical  advantage  to  be  supplied  at  their 
option  to  rich  and  poor  alike."  This  greatly 

71 


Fifty         encouraged  the  formation  of  high  schools  in 

Tears  of  other  states,  as  well  as  legalized  them  in  Michi- 

_  ^       .     gan.  Wisconsin  established  a  system  of  free  hieh 
t  due  at  ion  -/  o 

schools  in  1875  and  Minnesota  in  1881.  Each 
succeeding  year  has  seen  their  number  grow, 
until  in  1 9 1 4  there  was  a  total  number  of  1 1 ,5 1 5 
public  high  schools,  with  57,909  instructors 
and  1,218,804  students.  There  were  moreover 
2199  private  secondary  schools,  with  13,890 
teachers  and  154,857  students.  No  statistics 
seem  to  be  available  to  make  possible  a  com- 
parison of  the  number  of  schools  in  existence 
at  the  beginning  of  the  half  century  with  the 
number  in  existence  at  its  close.  Their  tre- 
mendous growth  can,  however,  be  indicated 
by  a  comparison  of  the  above  figures  with  the 
number  of  schools  in  existence  in  1890,  when 
a  total  of  2526  public  high  schools,  with  9 1 20 
teachers  and  202,963  students,  were  reported. 
There  were  at  that  time  1632  private  schools, 
with  7209  teachers  and  94,931  students.  That 
is,  there  were  more  than  three  and  one-third 
times  as  many  high  schools,  more  than  four  and 
one-third  times  as  many  teachers,  and  more 
72 


than  four  and  one-third  times  as  many  students  Some 
in  19 14  as  there  had  been  twenty-four  years  Changes 
before.  The  explanation  of  this  remarkable  "^^^^^^^ 
change  is  to  be  round  m  the  more  thorough 
character  of  high-school  instruction,  in  the 
greater  variety  of  courses  which  are  offered, 
and,  above  all,  in  a  growing  conviction  on  the 
part  of  the  American  people  that  an  elementary 
education,  no  matter  how  good  it  may  be,  is 
not  sufficient  preparation  for  the  battle  of  life 
on  the  part  of  the  young.  The  time  seems  to  be 
rapidly  approaching  when  public  opinion  will 
demand  some  sort  of  high-school  training  for 
all.  At  the  beginning  of  our  period  the  high 
school  was  hardly  a  common  school.  Its  chief, 
and  nearly  its  only  function,  was  to  teach  Latin, 
Greek,  and  mathematics  to  the  small  part  of  the 
population  which  planned  to  go  on  to  college. 
That  traditional  task  has  colored  all  its  work, 
but  is  now  the  smallest  part  of  it.  It  was  solic- 
itude "to  give  a  child  an  education  that  shall 
fit  him  for  active  life  and  shall  serve  as  a  foun- 
dation for  eminence  in  his  profession,  whether 
mercantile   or   mechanical,''  that  led  to  the 

73 


Fifty         founding  of  the  first  high  school,  in    1821. 

Tears  of  Though  the  high  school  was  an  outgrowth  of 

-  ,  the  elementary  school,  the  college  practice  of 

Education  ,    .  .       . 

admitting  students  upon  examination  made  it 

an  adjunct  to  the .  college.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  Civil  War  these  examinations  were  in 
Latin,  Greek,  arithmetic,  geography,  English 
grammar,  algebra,  geometry,  and  ancient  his- 
tory. New  subjects  made  their  appearance  in 
the  college-entrance  examinations  in  this  order: 

Modern  history  (United  States),  Michigan  1869 

Physical  geography,  Michigan  and  Harvard  1870 

English  composition,  Princeton     .     .     .     .  1870 

Physical  science,  Harvard 1872 

English  literature.  Harvard 1874 

Modern  language  (foreign).  Harvard      .     .  1875 

Alternative  courses  and  a  large  freedom  of  elec- 
tion began  to  be  offered  in  colleges  about  the 
year  1 869,  and,  as  a  consequence,  courses  other 
than  the  classical  course  began  to  be  given  in 
high  schools.  Their  diversity  has  increased  with 
the  years,  and  now  commercial  courses,  tech- 
nical courses,  manual-training  and  domestic- 
science  courses,  art  courses,  agricultural  courses, 

74 


English  scientific  courses,  etc.,  and  frequently  Some 

separate  schools  devoted  to  one  or  another  of  Changes 

^1  r  r  •     ^       ^-  u  •     ^/«^<?  the 

these  forms  oi  instruction,  are  much  more  in  ^.   .,„^ 

Liviimir 
evidence  than  is  the  classical  course  of  instruc- 
tion from  which  they  all  sprang.  The  old  method 
of  passing  from  the  high  school  to  the  college 
throughthe  entrance  way  of  examinations  is 
still  pretty  completely  in  force  in  the  eastern 
part  of  the  United  States.  In  the  West  an  ac- 
crediting system,  the  outgrowth  of  that  intro- 
duced  by  the  University  of  Michigan  in  1871, 
obtains.  Innumerable  conferences  have  been 
held  for  the  purpose  of  improving  the  articula- 
tion between  the  high  school  and  the  college. 
That  subject  is  temporarily  in  abeyance,  for  in 
more  recent  years  the  question  of  the  relation- 
ship of  the  elementary  school  to  the  high  school 
has  supplanted  it.  The  junior  high  school,  or 
intermediate  school,  has  been  created  to  bridge 
the  gap  that  formerly  lay  between  them.  That 
institution  is  as  yet  rather  too  new  for  statistical 
consideration.  It  took  form  in  Berkeley,  Cali- 
fornia, in  the  year  1908,  and  has  been  adopted 
in  some  form  or  other  in  many  cities  and  towns 

IS 


,  Fifty  of  the  United  States.  Fundamentally,  it  involves 
Tears  of  ^  reorganization  of  courses  in  the  seventh  and 
-,  ,  eighth  grades  of  the  elementary  school,  to  pro- 

vide for  differentiation  of  work  for  pupils  in 
accordance  with  their  tastes,  aptitudes,  and 
probable  future  careers.  This  rearrangement  of 
courses  facilitates  departmental  teaching.  In 
some  places  this  reorganized  upper-elementary 
school  is  combined  with  the  first  year  of  the 
high  school,  and  a  separate  intermediate  school 
is  formed.  This  is  the  six,  three,  and  three  plan. 
Other  redistributions  are  found.  While  the  six, 
three,  and  three  plan  bids  fair  to  be  generally 
accepted,  the  period  of  preliminary  experimen- 
tation is  not  yet  over. 

Another  change  to  be  noted  is  the  lengthen- 
ing of  the  high-school  course  by  the  addition 
of  two  years  of  college  work.  This  is  called 
the  junior  college.  It  too  is  still  an  experiment 
which  as  yet  but  few  communities  have  been 
moved  to  try. 

Vocational  education,  which  is  the  oldest 
form  of  education  of  all,  has  asserted  its  claims 
with  unusual  vigor  since  the  beginning  of  the 

76 


twentieth  century.  After  much  agitation  three  Some 

types  of  schools  have  been  evolved  to  prepare  Changes 

1  J     •  1  c      ^  c         r  since  the 

boys  and  girls  over  fourteen  years  oi  age  tor  em-        . , 

ployment  in  agriculture  and  in  the  trades  and 
industries:  all-day  schools,  which  aim  to  give 
opportunities  for  practicing  a  vocation  on  a 
productive  basis;  part-time  schools,  intended  to 
give  young  workers  an  opportunity  to  extend 
their  knowledge  of  their  vocation  or  fit  them- 
selves for  a  new  one;  evening  schools,  to  provide 
opportunity  for  mature  workers  to  extend  their 
knowledge  of  the  vocations  in  which  they  are 
engaged  during  the  day.  Though  this  whole 
endeavor  falls  within  this  century,  six  or  more 
states  already  have  in  operation  definite  plans  for 
organizing  and  supervising  vocational  schools 
and  assist  local  communities  in  financing  them. 
These  states  are  Massachusetts,  New  York,  New 
Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Wisconsin,  and  Indiana. 
At  least  four  other  states  have  made  the  begin- 
nings of  similar  organization.  Efforts  to  pro- 
mote this  type  of  education  have  already  been 
so  effective  that  the  Smith-Hughes  Bill  has 
become  a  law,  subsidizing  vocational  education 


Fifty         in   the  several   states   by   maximal   grants   of 
Tears  of  $7^000,000  per  annum  from  the  national  treas- 

-  ,  ury,  this  money  to  be  p:iven  to  the  states  for  the 

Education  .  \  ^ 

salaries  of  vocational  teachers  and  for  the  train- 
ing of  such  teachers  only  upon  condition  that 
they  expend  an  equal  amount  for  the  same  pur- 
pose. With  the  development  of  vocational  edu- 
cation the  problem  of  vocational  guidance  has 
demanded  attention  and  the  beginnings  of  a 
helpful  service  to  young  people  have  been  made. 
Of  the  563  colleges,  universities,  and  techno- 
logical schools  in  the  United  States  in  1 9 1 5,  not 
less  than  304  were  established  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  year  1 867.  "The  Illinois  Industrial 
University,"  located  at  Champaign,  Illinois,  was 
founded  in  1867,  "to  teach  such  branches  of 
learning  as  are  related  to  agriculture  and  the 
mechanic  arts,  not  excluding  other  scientific 
and  classical  studies  and  military  tactics."  The 
preparatory  department  of  the  University  of 
Minnesota  was  opened  in  1 867,  and  by  1869  a 
class  had  been  fitted  for  the  first  college  year. 
Cornell  University  was  opened  to  students  in 
1868.  The  American  college  goes  back  to  1 6  3  6 

78 


for  its  beginning,  but  the  American  university  Some 
is  almost  entirely  a  creation  of  the  last  fifty  years.  Changes 

The  Yale  cataloeue  ofi86o-i86i  contains  the  ^.   . ,  „;, 

^  ^      CivilWar 

first  announcement  that  the  Ph.D.  degree  will 

be  granted.  Harvard  did  not  announce  it  until 
1872.  It  was  not  until  1890  that  Harvard  organ- 
ized a  separate  graduate  school.  The  University 
of  Michigan  offered  the  doctor's  degree  in  phil- 
osophy in  1 874.  Johns  Hopkins  University  was 
opened  for  instruction  in  1 876.  It  was  primarily 
a  graduate  school  fix)m  the  first  and  has  shaped 
university  instruction  throughout  the  entire 
country  as  perhaps  no  other  influence  has.  The 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology  was 
opened  in  1865.  Of  the  significant  history  and 
the  vast  influence  of  these  and  a  score  of  other 
great  teaching  organizations  the  limits  within 
which  we  work  forbid  us  to  speak;  upon  the 
teaching  of  medicine,  law,  and  theology  we  may 
not  enter,  though  changes  as  significant  as  any 
which  we  have  mentioned  have  taken  place  in 
these  great  fields.  For  the  education  of  atypical 
and  defective  children,  as  for  each  of  these  great 
subjects,  a  whole  volume  would  be  required. 

79 


Fifty  Of  the  growth  of  scientific  agriculture  we 

Tears  of  must  speak  a  Uttle  more  at  length.  It  began  with 
^  ;  the  passage  of  the  Morrill  Act  on  July  2,  1 862, 

in  the  midst  of  the  Civil  War.  It  increased  so 
mightily  that  in  19 14  there  were  69  agricul- 
tural colleges,  with  69,132  students  and  6379 
instructors.  These  places  of  agricultural  learn- 
ing have  for  some  years  been  teaching  from 
60,000  to  80,000  students  per  year.  Approxi- 
mately <^  "i,  per  cent  of  their  graduates  return  to 
the  farm,  and  9  j;  per  cent  devote  themselves  to 
agriculture  in  some  form  or  other.  Of  those  not 
graduating,  practically  all  return  to  the  land.  In 
addition,  very  liberal  provisions  have  been  made 
by  some  of  the  states  for  the  teaching  of  agri- 
culture in  the  public  schools.  Massachusetts  has 
developed  a  remarkable  system  of  project  work. 
New  York  State  has  recently  adopted  the  town- 
ship system  of  school  control  and  has  passed  a 
law  authorizing  each  town  to  employ  a  town 
director  of  agriculture,  the  state  pledging  itself 
to  provide  $600  as  its  contribution  to  his  salary. 
The  higher  education  of  women  has  been 
peculiarly  a  development  of  the  last  fifty  years. 
80 


The  Civil  War  left  the  work  of  teaching  the  Some 
young  largely  in  the  hands  of  women.  They  Changes 

were  so  faithful  in  that  which  was  committed  ^.   .,„^ 

Civil  IVar 

to  them  that  they  were  made  rulers  over  more 
and  more  cities.  If  they  were  to  teach,  they 
must  have  opportunities  for  learning.  When 
Michigan  University  opened  its  doors  to  them, 
in  1870,  they  were  for  the  first  time  in  the 
United  States  accorded  equal  opportunities  with 
men  in  a  thoroughly  established  college.  All  the 
state  universities  made  provision  for  them.  Of 
colleges  for  women,  Vassar  was  opened  in  1 865, 
Wellesley  in  1 875,  Smith  in  1 875,  Bryn  Mawr 
in  1885,  RadclifFe  in  1879,  Barnard  in  1889. 
All  the  universities  save  three  or  four  are  open 
to  them.  In  1870  but  30.7  per  cent  of  the 
colleges  were  coeducational,  and  69.3  per  cent 
were  for  men  only.  In  191 5,  however,  70.7 
per  cent  of  the  colleges  open  to  men  were 
coeducational,  and  29.3  per  cent  for  men  only. 
The  education  of  the  children  of  the  negro 
race  was  one  of  the  most  serious  problems  that 
the  nation  confronted  at  the  end  of  the  war. 
The  Freedmen's  Bureau,  created  by  Congress 

81 


Fifty         in  1865,  was  the  first  governmental  agency  to 

Tears  of  organize  schools  for  them.  It  had  the  assist- 

merican  ^^^^  q£  numerous  religious  and  philanthropic 
Education        .     .  .  ^ 

societies.  By  1870  it  was  able  to  report  that 

more  than  247,000  children  had  been  gathered 
into  classes,  that  the  states  had  already  made  a 
beginning,  and  that  "  the  whole  race  is  recover- 
ing from  the  effects  of  slavery."  Normal  schools 
for  the  training  of  colored  teachers  had  been 
established,  and  the  freedmen  themselves,  dur- 
ing the  first  six  months  of  1 870,  paid  $200,000 
for  their  schools.  This  bureau  was  abolished  in 
1872.  The  rancor  which  mistaken  methods  of 
reconstruction  engendered  prevented  for  a  long 
time  the  necessary  work  of  public  education. 
Missionary  organizations,  the  American  Mis- 
sionary Association,  the  Freedmen's  Aid  Society 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  the  Pres- 
byterian Board  of  Missions  for  Freedmen,  and 
the  American  Baptist  Home  Mission  Society, 
together  with  smaller  societies  of  other  denom- 
inations, and  private  benefactions,  carried  on 
and  extended  the  work  which  had  been  begun. 
The  dimensions  of  the  service  which  they 
82 


rendered  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  Some 
the  American  Missionary  Association,  organized  Changes 

in  1 8  66,  alone  spent  $6,000,000  in  twenty  years  ^!!!^^ ,r  t 
r.         .  .  .  ,        .       .   .  Civil mr 

01  Its  existence  in  creating  and  maintaining  no 

less  than  9  colleges  and  professional  schools, 
12  normal  schools,  and  50  academies  and  ele- 
mentary schools.  The  record  of  the  other  soci- 
eties is  of  the  same  tenor. 

In  1 867,  George  Peabody  (immortal  for  his 
benefactions)  created  a  trust  fund  of  $  i  ,000,000, 
the  income  thereof  to  be  applied  and  used  "for 
the  promotion  and  encouragement  of  intellec- 
tual, moral,  or  industrial  education  among  the 
young  of  the  more  destitute  portions  of  the 
southern  and  southwestern  states  of  the  Union." 
He  directed  that  this  benefit  should  be  "distrib- 
uted among  the  entire  population  without  other 
distinction  than  their  needs  and  the  opportuni- 
ties of  usefulness  to  them.''  In  the  same  year  he 
added  $1,100,000  in  Mississippi  state  bonds 
and  at  his  death  another  million,  making  a  total 
of  $3,000,000.  This  fund  was  most  wisely  dis- 
tributed, aiding  only  those  districts  which  raised 
twice  the  amount  they  received  from  it.  Schools 

83 


Fifty  received  no  aid  unless  they  were  graded  and 
Tears  of  \^^^  ^X  least  loo  pupils,  with  one  teacher  for 
^,  every  50  pupils,  and  an  average  attendance  of 

not  less  than  8  5  per  cent.  During  the  first  four 
years  of  its  existence  this  fund  was  used  to  assist 
the  establishing  of  school  systems  in  the  cities 
of  the  South;  for  the  next  four  years  it  was  used 
to  encourage  the  establishment  of  state  school 
systems.  In  1875  its  secretary  reported  that  all 
the  states  had  established  school  systems  and 
were  maintaining  them.  The  trustees  of  the  fund 
thereupon  devoted  it  to  the  proper  training  of 
teachers.  They  established  a  normal  school  at 
Nashville,  and  in  order  that  it  might  leaven  the 
entire  South  they  created  a  large  number  of 
scholarships,  of  $200  each,  to  enable  deserving 
students  from  all  the  Southern  states  to  attend 
its  classes.  By  1903  this  parent  normal  school 
was  no  longer  needed,  for  it  had  secured  the 
creation  of  state  normal  schools  to  foster  the 
schools  of  each  state.  The  trustees  thereupon 
transformed  the  Peabody  Normal  School  into 
the  well-endowed  Peabody  College  for  the 
Training  of  Teachers. 

84 


In  1882  John  F.  Slater  created  a  trust  of  Some 
$  1 ,000,000  for  the  promotion  of  normal  and  in-  Changes 

dustrial  education  among  the  children  of  freed-  ^.   .,„^ 

^  .  .  .         CivilWar 

men.  The  income  from  this  fund  is  used  chiefly 
to  pay  the  salaries  of  teachers  of  industrial  pur- 
suits in  schools  for  colored  students.  A  board  of 
trustees  was  organized  in  1908  to  administer  a 
fundof$i,ooo,ooo  given  by  Miss  AnnaT.Jeanes 
for  fostering  rural  schools  for  negroes.  This  fund 
is  used  in  several  ways :  in  some  districts  county 
superintendents  are  assigned  a  superior  teacher 
of  industrial  work,  whose  duty  it  is  to  introduce 
such  work  into  the  rural  schools  of  the  county 
and  to  supervise  it;  in  other  districts  a  teacher 
is  assigned  to  a  central  school  and  does  exten- 
sion work  in  the  schools  of  the  region  about  it; 
a  third  method  consists  in  cooperating  with 
local  communities  in  lengthening  the  school 
term.  Another  fund  of  $  i  ,000,000,  the  Phelps- 
Stokes  fund,  assists  by  making  researches,  endow- 
ing scholarships,  etc.  The  General  Education 
Board,  incorporated  in  1903  for  "the  promo- 
tion of  education  within  the  United  States  of 
America  without  distinction  of  race,  sex,  or 

85 


Fifty         creed,"  and  which  controls  a  fund  of  some 

Years  of   ^46, 000,000,  originally  devoted  its  resources 

i^American  1  •  r  j  1  j 

^  ,  to   the   promotion   01   secondary,   rural,   and 

negro  education  in  the  Southern  states.  Since 
1905  it  has  taken  the  entire  country  for  its 
province,  and  more  recently  it  has  planned  to 
assist  medical  education  in  China.  It  is  chiefly 
concerned  with  the  promotion  of  agriculture 
in  the  South,  the  development  of  a  system  of 
secondary  schools  there,  and  the  promotion  of 
higher  education  throughout  the  nation.  With 
such  encouragement  as  these  great  organiza- 
tions have  been  able  to  give  the  education  of 
the  colored  race,  it  is  clear  that  progress  alto- 
gether unprecedented  in  the  history  of  the  world 
has  been  made.  The  average  of  life  has  risen  so 
rapidly,  and  colored  men  who  were  born  in 
slavery  have  attained  such  usefulness  and  leader- 
ship in  the  short  period  since  the  war,  as  to  en- 
courage a  confident  hopefulness  for  the  future 
of  their  race.  The  work  of  Booker  T.  Washington 
alone  has  transformed  the  status  of  a  people.  It 
is  a  significant  fact  that  the  industrial  training 
developed  in  the  colored  schools  has  blazed  a 
86 


since  the 
Ci'VilVPhr 


path  which  education  is  to-day  taking  through-  Some 
out  the  nation.  Changes 

In  addition  to  those  already  mentioned,  three 
other  great  endowments  have  been  made  for 
the  promotion  of  education.  One  of  these  is  the 
Carnegie  Institution  at  Washington.  It  took 
form  in  1 907  and  is  a  corporation  "to  encourage 
in  the  broadest  and  most  liberal  manner  investi- 
gation, research,  and  discovery,  and  the  appli-. 
cation  of  knowledge  to  the  .improvement  of 
mankind."  It  has  a  fund  of  $22,000,000  for 
that  purpose. 

In  the  year  1906  Mr.  Carnegie  created  a 
Foundation  for  the  Advancement  of  Teaching, 
endowing  it  with  $10,000,000,  to  which  sum 
in  1908  he  added  $5,000,000.  "I  have  reached 
the  conclusion,"  said  Mr.  Carnegie,  "that  the 
least  rewarded  of  all  the  professions  is  that  of 
the  teacher  in  our  higher  educational  institu- 
tions. ...  I  have  transferred  to  you,  and  to  your 
successors  as  trustees,  $  1 0,000,000,  the  revenue 
from  which  is  to  provide  retiring  pensions 
for  the  teachers  of  universities,  colleges,  and 
technical  schools  in  our  country,  Canada,  and 

87 


Fifty         Newfoundland,  under  such  conditions  as  you 

Tears  of  j^^y-  adopt  from  time  to  time/' 

i^fyieTtccLfi       — 

o  ,  The  Russell  Saee  Foundation  was  created  in 

t  due  at  ton  ^  ° 

1 907,  by  a  gift  of  $  1 0,000,000  from  Mrs.  Sage, 
for  the  "improvement  of  social  and  living  condi- 
tions in  the  United  States  of  America."  Its  trus- 
tees decided  at  the  beginning  that  its  primary 
function  is  "to  eradicate  as  far  as  possible  the 
causes  of  poverty  and  ignorance  rather  than  to 
relieve  the  sufferings  of  those  who  are  poor 
or  ignorant."  Among  its  activities  has  been  a 
persistent  study  of  the  ways  of  measuring  edu- 
cational progress  and  results,  and  a  series  of 
important  investigations  of  the  problem  of  re- 
tardation and  elimination  in  the  public  schools. 
Very  important  school  surveys  have  been  made 
by  its  educational  staff.  The  total  bequests  to 
education  from  1871  to  19 14,  inclusive,  is  re- 
ported by  the  United  States  Commissioner  of 
Education  as  $584,418,082. 

It  is  fitting  since  we  began  with  science  that 

we  should  end  with  science.  There  is  no  magic 

about  it,  nothing  but  the  patience  to  answer 

human  problems  by  examining  minutely  facts 

88 


which  bear  upon  them.  This  same  minuter  ex-  Some 

amining  of  facts  which  in  fifty  years  produced  Changes 

J.   .       1  J        J  J        ^-         si^ce  the 

a  new  medicine  has  produced  a  new  education.  ^.   ,,,^^ 

^  .  Civil  War 

Three  hundred  years  ago  Richard  Mulcaster 
urged  the  importance  of  a  serious  study  of  edu- 
cation. "I  conclude/'  he  said,  "that  this  trade 
requireth  a  particular  college  for  these  four 
causes.  First,  for  the  subject,  being  the  means 
to  make  or  mar  the  whole  fry  of  our  state.  Sec- 
ondly, for  the  number,  whether  of  them  that 
are  to  learn  or  of  them  that  are  to  teach.  Thirdly, 
for  the  necessity  of  the  profession,  which  may 
not  be  spared.  Fourthly,  for  the  matter  of  their 
study,  which  is  comparable  to  the  greatest  pos- 
sessions, for  language,  for  judgment,  for  skill 
how  to  train,  for  variety  in  all  points  of  learn- 
ing, wherein  the  framing  of  the  mind  and  the 
exercising  of  the  body  craveth  exquisite  con- 
sideration, besides  the  staidness  of  the  person." 
College  authorities  were  deaf  to  this  proposal 
and  blind  to  this  need  until  President  Wayland 
sought  to  establish  a  course  of  instruction  in  the 
science  of  teaching  at  Brown  University  in  1 8  5  o. 
His  efforts  were  not  successful.  Horace  Mann 

89 


Fifty         introduced  such  a  course  as  an  elective  study  at 
Years  of  Antioch  College  in  1853.  The  University  of 

t^  J  Iowa  had  a  normal  department  from  i8c6  to 

taucatton  ^  ^  -^ 

1873,  which  became  a  chair  of  didactics  after 
that  date.  In  1874  President  Angell  recom- 
mended that  lectures  be  given  to  the  senior  class 
of  the  University  of  Michigan  on  the  organiz- 
ing and  management  of  schools  and  the  art  of 
teaching.  In  1879  the  Regents,  on  the  recom- 
mendation of  the  president  and  faculty  of  that 
university,  established  a  chair  of  science  and 
art  of  teaching,  with  the  fivefold  purpose,  as 
they  declared,  of  fitting  university  students  for 
the  higher  positions  in  the  public-school  serv- 
ice, of  promoting  the  science  of  education,  of 
teaching  the  history  and  theory  of  education, 
of  securing  to  teaching  the  rights  and  preroga- 
tives of  a  profession,  and  of  giving  a  more  per- 
fect unity  to  the  state  educational  system. 

Since  that  time  many  universities  and  col- 
leges have  created  similar  chairs,  which  have 
not  been  slow  in  becoming  energetic  depart- 
ments. For  a  long  time  their  occupants  were 
regarded  with  a  good  deal  of  suspicion  by  their 
90 


more  conservative  colleagues  in  the  academic  Some 

family.  They  were  not  slow,  however,  in  prov-  Changes 

^1     •  r  ^  J  -^  1  since  the 

ing  their  useiulness,  and  it  soon  became  appar- 

ent  that  the  interest  which  they  represented 
was  too  serious  and  far-reaching  to  be  conserved 
by  such  inadequate  means. 

Clark  University,  which  opened  in  1889, 
made  ampler  provision  for  it;  and  in  1898 
Teachers  College  became  a  professional  school 
of  Columbia  University,  taking  rank  with  the  * 
schools  of  law,  medicine,  and  applied  science. 
The  University  of  Chicago  has  also  established 
a  cqllege  of  education,  and  schools  of  education 
are  now  to  be  found  in  nearly  all  of  the  larger 
universities. 

•  This  institutional  study  of  education  is  a 
twentieth-century  activity.  Its  first  fruits  are 
a  clearer  comprehension  of  educational  prin- 
ciples and  a  more  thorough  organization  of 
educational  machinery.  Energetic  research  has 
already  been  as  profitable  in  this  field  as  in  other 
fields  of  science. 

One  of  our  most  capable  historians  of  edu- 
cation values  what  has  been  achieved  in  this     ' 

91 


Fifty         direction  so  highly  that  he' does  not  hesitate  to 
Tears  of  g^y  that  John  Dewey's  discovery  that  real  edu- 

^  ,  cation  is  and  must  be  based  upon  the  nature  of 

taucation  ^  /- 

the  child  and  E.  L.  Thorndike's  discovery  of  a 
method  of  scientifically  measuring  educational 
results  will  in  time  be  ranked  in  importance  with 
Darwin's  conception  of  evolution.  Rousseau's 
adjuration  "Study  your  pupil,  for  it  is  evident 
that  you  know  nothing  about  him"  has  been  a 
controlling  principle  in  the  last  four  decades. 
A  science  of  child  psychology  came  into  being, 
and  psychological  conceptions  and  methods 
took  the  place  of  empirical  notions  and  rule-of- 
thumb  devices  of  an  earlier  time.  Herbart's 
reconstructions  of  educational  doctrine  contrib- 
uted to  this  movement.  Physiology  and  psy- 
chology taught  the  schoolmaster  that  the  human 
organism  is  an  action  system.  Passivity  in  learn- 
ing was  abandoned,  and  methods  of  training 
through  activity  were  substituted  for  it.  The 
newly  discovered  science  of  medicine  and  the 
new  education  joined  forces  to  conserve  the 
physical  well-being  of  the  growing  child.  Acti- 
vistic  psychology  revealed  the  importance  of 
92 


Nature's  method  of  training  him  by  play.  Scien-  Some 
tific  study  of  administration  and  of  methods  of  Changes 

instruction  led  to  a  reorg^anization  of  schools,  ^.   .,„^ 

°  .  ,  LivillVar 

and  school  surveying  came  into  being  as  a 
method  of  determining  whether  or  not  condi- 
tions called  for  improvement  and  of  deciding 
v^hat  that  improvement  should  be.  The  effort  to 
evaluate  instruction  necessitated  the  formula- 
tion of  standards  and  measuring  scales  with 
which  to  detect  the  presence  or  absence  of  the 
results  required.  That  particular  endeavor  is  still 
in  its  earlier  stages,  but  bureaus  for  measuring 
and  testing  the  sufficiency  of  the  processes  and 
the  products  of  instruction  have  been  created  in 
several  places.  The  study  of  sociology  has  con- 
tributed substantially  to  the  remaking  of  educa- 
tional theory.  The  pragmatic  philosophy,  with 
its  revolutionary  conception  of  the  nature  and 
function  of  knowledge,  has  just  begun  to  revise 
educational  aims  and  remake  programs  of  study. 
Newer  and  truer  educational  rallying  cries  begin 
to  sound  above  the  call  to  get  knowledge  for 
the  sake  of  knowledge  and  science  for  the  sake 
of  science.Purposive  education  begins  to  banish 

93 


Fifty         aimless  learning  from  the  field.  The  doctrine 

Tears  of  of  formal  or  general  discipline,  which  directed 

^  ,       .     the  pursuit  of  certain  studies  for  the  develop- 
taucatton  ^  ^ 

ment  of  the  faculties  or  powers  of  the  mind,  has 
been  scientifically  tested  and  found  wanting. 
A  philosophy  of  education  can  no  longer  be 
made  out  of  it.  When  it  is  given  up,  as  it  must 
be,  only  specific  education  will  remain,  but 
specific  education  so  rich  in  variety  and  so  defi- 
nite in  purpose  and  method  that  it  promises 
results  far  better  than  those  which  the  old  train- 
ing gave. 

Thus  at  the  end  of  fifty  years  of  unparalleled 
progress  the  world  waits  impatiently  for  the 
coming  of  peace  to  begin  a  yet  greater  cycle 
of  educational  renewing. 


94 


A  BRIEF  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Boone,  Richard  J.  Education  in  the  United  States. 
D.  Appleton  and  Company,  New  York. 

Brown,  Elmer  E.  The  Making  of  our  Middle 
Schools.  Longmans,  Green,  &  Co.,  New  York. 

Butler,  Nicholas  Murray  (Editor).  Mono- 
graphs on  Education.  Department  of  Education 
for  the  United  States  Commission  to  the  Paris 
Exposition  of  1 900. 

Carlton,  Frank.  "Economic  Influences  upon 
Educational  Advance  in  the  United  States, 
.  1 820-1 850,"  Bulletin  of  the  University  of 
Wisconsin,  1908. 

CuBBERLY,  E.  P.  Changing  Conceptions  of  Edu- 
cation. Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  Boston. 

FiNEGAN,  Thomas  E.  Teacher  Training  Agencies. 
Eleventh  Annual  Report  of  the  State  Depart- 
ment of  Education,  Vol.  II,  Albany,  New  York. 

Hanaford,  Phebe  a.  The  Life  of  George  Pea- 
body.  B.  B.  Russell,  Boston. 

Mann,  Mrs.  Mary  (Editor).  Life  and  Works  of 
Horace  Mann.  Horace  B.  Fuller,  Boston. 

Martin,  George  H.  The  Evolution  of  the  Mas- 
sachusetts Public  School  System.  D.  Appleton 
and  Company,  New  York. 

95 


Parker,  S.  C-  A  History  of  Modern  Elementary 
Education.  Ginn  and  Company,  Boston. 

Thwing,  Charles  F.  A  History  of  Higher  Edu- 
cation in  America.  D.  Appleton  and  Company, 
New  York. 

Proceedings  ofthe  American  Institute  of  Instruction. 

The  Reports  of  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  Edu- 
cation. 

Reports  of  the  School  Committee  of  Boston. 

The  Reports  ofthe  United  States  Commissioner  of 
Education  (particularly  the  earlier  ones). 


96 


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